Superfeminatural
by RachelMus
Summary: If Sam and Dean had been born female, would their story have stayed the same? Meet Sammy and Dee, both Hunters, both women. Life's harder when you're a girl doing a man's job, but if anyone's going to save the world, it's going to be these two.
1. Chapter 1 - Women can't be Hunters

Dee hated wearing a bra. Absolutely hated it. Underwiring was god's idea of a joke, and trying to keep the straps on her shoulders while swinging a chainsaw at a bunch of vamps was a nightmare. So she shrugged the offending article off and pulled a loose green tshirt over her head. As long as it was loose enough, and the temperature didn't drop too low, no one would know. She picked up her leather jacket, the big one that smelled like warmth and whiskey, and tucked her shoelaces tightly into her army surplus boots, so they wouldn't come undone when she was running for a life from a vengeful spirit. She completed her morning ritual by patting her pockets. Car keys, purse, chapstick... Everything else she'd need for the day was locked in the boot of the Impala. Well, except one.

"Sam!" She shouted towards the shabby bathroom door. This motel was better than most, with no damp and windows that closed fully. However, it still left a lot to be desired, with it's purple and brown wallpaper and paint that peeled away from the skirting board and door frames. The door to the bathroom didn't shut properly, and although she didn't mind, Sam obviously did. She wedged the door shut every time she went in there.

"Sammy, hurry up please, we need to check this stuff out." She said, calling her sister's name in a sing song tone. Dee went back to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling a folded piece of newspaper out of her pocket and smoothing it out so she could read it for the umpteenth time.

'Local Man killed by Wild Beast!' The tacky tabloid heading screamed at her. The article was sensationalist crap, all about the grieving family and how wonderful the deceased had been. Sammy had held it up to Dee two days ago, when they'd been in Michigan, to laugh at how spelling was getting worse and worse. But it had been a small line near the bottom of the page that had caught Dee's attention.

'Man's heart TORN out!' The rest of that small paragraph was filled with gruesome details of the man's death, down to the author speculating what it would feel like to have your heart ripped out. It seemed like the reporter had enjoyed that story. The tone was far too gleeful for Dee's taste. That's why she wanted to pay him a visit. See what he had to say for himself.

Finally, the bathroom door opened and Dee's little sister walked out, brown hair wrapped up in a towel. Being Sammy, she was wearing a matching set of bra and knickers in some kind of floral design, and she'd done her makeup too. She looked nice. Dee resisted to urge to mock, and instead asked,

'"What took you so long?"

"Deep conditioning Deanna. Helps keep my hair soft." Samantha said, as though Dee was retarded. Dee didn't know what a deep condition was. Sam let her hair down from the towel and Dee scrutinised it before deciding that it looked the same as usual. Sam had learned a lot about how to be girly when she went away to Stanford. Dee had stayed with Dad and learned forty six different ways to kill a man.

"Yeah. Anyway," she said, sniffing. "I think we should go and have a chat with our journalist here this morning." She checked the by-line on the article. "A Taylor Robinson."

"We don't usually ask the journalists questions. Shouldn't we just ask around, see if people have seen anything weird..." Sam said. She buttoned up a flannel shirt and pulled on jeans as she spoke.

"Usually, I'd agree with you," Dee stood as Sam grabbed her bag, ready to go. "But this guy seems like he's got a little thing for folks being found with their hearts missing, which in my book is not okay."

Sam nodded and made to follow Dee out of the door.

"Er hang on..." She said suddenly, "Dee, are you wearing a bra?" The look of shock on her face was incredible.

"Nope!" Dee grinned from ear to ear, and the smile stayed there until they pulled up outside the newspaper's office.


	2. Chapter 2

Dee locked the Impala door and squinted up at the tall building. "Are we dressed right for this?" She asked, glancing down at her scruffy top and leggings. They were both too casual for this. Given the shittiness of the newspaper's articles, and the less than stellar writing of its journalists, Dee had expected something a little more low-key. From the looks of it, Sammy had too.

"It's okay." Her sister said, breathing in. "We'll just say we're students... Doing a piece for the college paper on the same man. Something like that."

"Well, then it's your joint." Dee said. She wouldn't be any use when it came to convincing people they wrote for a college paper. Sam was the brains, and she just kicked the shit out of people when it was necessary. Dee pushed her blonde hair out of her face as she and her sister marched into the building together. Was it a bit greasy? Maybe she should ask Sammy about the whole 'deep conditioning' thing.

"Excuse me ladies, can I help you?" A security guard had stepped in front of them, more silently than his size implied he could.

"Er, yes, hello." Sam flashed the guard a smile. "We're looking for Taylor Robinson, do you know where we can find him?"

"Do you have an appointment?" The security guard asked, not even blinking when Sam turned on her winning charm.

"No, but we're reaaally hoping to speak to him about his latest article. We found it..." Sam leant forward and breathed "thrilling."

The security guard stiffened, and glanced at me. Dee smiled back, hoping that she wouldn't ruin the effect Sammy had had on him. "Alright." He said finally. "He's on the fourth floor. You tell him how you liked his article." As Sammy grinned and thanked him enthusiastically, Dee scoped out the three security cameras they had here in the lobby, just in case they had to come back there.

Once the lift doors closed behind them Sam dropped the flirty façade.

"It wouldn't hurt you to help, you know Dee." She snapped.

"Hey, I thought you had it covered! Two gorgeous girls fawning over him and the poor guy wouldn't have stood a chance." Dee said, winking at her, only to receive an eye roll for her trouble.

"Yeah alright Dee. You're so good at flirting, thought you might jump at a chance to show your skills."

"Next time, I promise." Deanna assured her. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. "Is it even the full moon? Because..."

"Don't worry, it is. I checked on our way over here," her sister reassured her. "In that stop-off near Milwaukee? Where you decided you hadn't been laid in.."

The lift doors opened before her sister could start a full-on rant about Deanna's sex life, for which she was grateful. Just because Sammy had had Jesse at Stanford (and look how that had turned out) and was totally sworn to the whole one woman, one man thing, didn't mean Dee had to be too.

Taylor Robinson's office was the one at the end. Dee plucked up the courage to knock on his door. After a brief moment they heard him call "Come in!" She pushed open the door to a spacious office with a window. The man, Taylor Robinson, sat on the windowsill next to a small potted cactus, on the phone to someone called Jill. He assured her twice that he would not miss his deadline again, then hung the phone up with a sigh.

"Bosses, eh?" He said, standing up. He was quite tall, conventionally handsome with a strong jaw and brown eyes. "So what can I do for you ladies?" His eyes flickered between Dee and Sam, eventually landing on Dee who had kicked her flirt into gear and was winding a strand of hair between her fingers.

But Sam reclaimed his attention when she began to speak. "We're college students sir," He interrupted her to request that she call him Taylor.

"Taylor," She continued, "and we're trying to do a piece for our campus paper about that man that was attacked by wild animals... You know the one that got his heart ripped out?"

"Oh yeah, gawd," Taylor drawled, turning round to rifle through some papers on his desk, finally pulling out a better-kept copy of the article Dee had crumpled in her pocket. "Fred Millbray... Absolutely terrible. Man goes out jogging round the park and down Memorial Way every night between nine and ten... It's only a half hour route so at ten past eleven his wife gets suspicious and drives out looking for him. He was found in the middle of the park, heart ripped out, massive claw marks in his legs like he was brought down. Strange thing is..." Taylor twisted his lips in a wry smile. "There aren't any animals big enough near here to do that kind of damage. And what kind of animal takes a heart? It'll be a big story if we crack it."

"How did you find out about the death?" Dee asked.

Taylor laughed. "Let's just say I'm _very_ good friends with the forensic pathologist." He said.


	3. Chapter 3

The forensic pathologist was a knock out. She wore her white lab coat like models wear designer gear, sashaying about the morgue and flicking her long dark hair everywhere. Her skin was a shade of brown so golden that Dee wanted to touch it to see if her hand came back covered in shimmer paint. The pathologist introduced herself as Baz Morgan, shaking Dee's calloused hand with a perfectly manicured one of her own.

"How can I help you?" She asked politely, quietly stacking some papers on the metal desk in the corner.

Between arriving at the morgue and leaving Taylor Robinson and his potted cactus. Dee and Sammy had swooped back to the motel to eat a bacon cheeseburger (Dee) and a green salad (Sammy) and change into what they fondly referred to as their 'smart suits.' Dee was now wearing a crisp white shirt, ironed between bites of burger on the crap motel ironing board, and a pair of black trousers with creases down the front. Sam had a snazzy red turtle neck and a skirt longer than Dee thought they made them.

"Agents Roberts and Plant." Dee introduced her and her sister, both holding up their faked FBI IDs in smooth synchronization.

"May I?" Baz Morgan extended a hand and Dee handed hers over, feeling a familiar jolt in her stomach. Just because she'd done it a million times didn't mean she wasn't nervous about getting caught out.

"Dean-na?" Ms Morgan glanced up at Dee as she pronounced her name wrong. Like every other person who read it off her ID.

"It's pronounced 'Diana,' actually." Dee did her best to sound professional. "Parents wanted a boy." At that the forensic pathologist smiled.

"Don't they all." She drawled. "So I'm guessing you're looking for a cadaver, agents?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, he should have come in last week or so. A Fred Millbray, wild animal?" She said.

Ms Morgan nodded and led them over to the morgue wall, where the bodies were refrigerated until their autopsies were complete. Opening the steel drawer, she rolled out the metal bed upon which Fred Millbray's body was stored. Deanna tried very hard not to look at the tag on his toe marking his details and date of death. She'd seen dead men too many times, and dead _other _things too, and she didn't mind corpses. She minded how everything a man was and had been could be written on a slip of paper and attached to his toe.

The body was a waxy white colour, the skin sagging violet where the body met the board as the blood pooled to the bottom of the body. On his face and neck it had already started flaking off, looking like he had a really bad case of dandruff. The front of his body had been ripped apart in classic werewolf style, huge rents across his pectorals and down to his belly button. His lower legs and arms were also covered in claw marks, bone glistening under the deepest ones.

"We stitched him back up so that the family could bury him" Ms Morgan was explaining. "But I think it'll still have to be a closed casket affair. Poor guy."

"So the police aren't treating the death as suspicious?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at the pathologist.

"No, why should they? Have you read the autopsy?" Ms Morgan retorted.

Sam stuttered, but Dee jumped in. "We just arrived in town yesterday. Would you mind going over it with us?" She grinned at the young woman, who relented slightly.

She pointed out the line of the cuts with a pen, not wanting to touch the body with ungloved hands. "You probably know by now that the heart's missing. It's literally been torn out, severed from the arteries by unwieldy teeth. The claw marks..." She gestured to them, "And the way the torso has been torn open all point towards a large animal, maybe a wild dog, though the claw spacings are closer to those of a wolf." The pathologist sighed. "But there aren't any wolves around these parts, so the police have put it down to a large dog. I think they would prefer to close the case quickly though. There aren't many tragic deaths around here. It's taken it out of the community a bit."

Dee shot a look at Sam as she asked her next question. "Ms Morgan, do you know a certain Taylor Robinson. Covered this story when the body was found?"

Baz Morgan froze as she was placing the sheet back over Fred Millbray's head.

"Please don't tell anyone. He would have found out eventually... I just..." She said, her voice squeaking, eyes wide with apprehension.

"Tell anyone what?" Dee said, frowning.

"That I told Taylor the story! We're not supposed to speak to journalists before the official press release comes out but I'd had a few drinks and..." Ms Morgan covered her mouth with her manicured hands and looked at the sisters with pleading eyes.

"Don't worry Ms Morgan. I doubt the story harmed the investigation if it was declared an unsuspicious death." Sam said, voice calm and in control.

"Thank you agents. I wouldn't..." She started

"One last question Ms Morgan." Dee interrupted her. "Have there been any similar attacks recently? Any other bodies come in with hearts missing?"

"Yes... there was actually." The pathologist said. "About a month ago... He was a homeless man though, so his body was cremated as soon as death was declared not to need investigating."

"Thank you very much Ms Morgan, you've been very helpful." Sam said, smiling at the nervous woman.

"My pleasure agents. If there's anything I can do for you... Just ask!"


	4. Chapter 4

Dee had let Sammy drive her baby as she sat in the passenger seat and thought. They were halfway back to the motel before she snapped her fingers, causing Sam to jump a bit out of her seat.

"Sammy, we need to go back to basics. Fred Millbray was ripped to shreds at a park?" She said.

"Yeah the one near Memorial Way." Sam said, not taking her eyes off the road, like the careful driver she was.

"Do we know where the homeless man was found?" Deanna tried to remember if the pathologist or the journalist had said anything.

"No, nothing's been said. Probably less important to them. Let's hit a diner, get some dinner and check that out."

Twenty minutes later Dee had a large bowl of tomato soup and a bacon sandwich sitting in front of her, while Sammy had opted again for the healthy choice, grilled chicken salad with the dressing on the side. The diner was decorated in a retro style, the yellow walls giving Deanna a headache, but the food smelled good and she was hungry.

"You're gonna lose muscle mass if you keep eating like that." Dee nodded towards Sammy's plate. "We need to be strong, specially if we're planning to gank a werewolf. Dad always said a big meal..."

"Dad wasn't always right." Sam snapped, not looking up from the laptop she'd set up in front of her. When Dee didn't answer her, however, she did look up, pushing her brown curls away from her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Sam started, but Dee waved it away.

"It's not important. Eat what you like." She said, but it smarted. When they had been growing up, Dad had let Sammy get away with a _lot _more than Dee would have been able to. Even down to the food she ate and the clothes she wore - all designed to make her big and strong, to look more like a boy. More than once he'd called her Dean by mistake.

Sammy on the other hand, had been daddy's princess. There was nothing that was too good for her. Even though he raged and shouted when she left for Stanford, he was still proud of her in a way he'd never been proud of Dee. There was a lot more she could dwell on: how she could fix the Impala's engine before she could hook a bra behind her back; how she could staunch a wound without blinking but the one time she had tried to paint her nails it had been an utter disaster... She shook her head. 'No use crying over spilt milk Deanna,' she told herself. And Sammy was speaking anyway,

"I'm looking at the local news and apparently the homeless man was a Warren Rogers, he was found a street away from Memorial Way, next to the service entrance of a bar called The Four Waters." She said, looking at Dee with anxious eyes.

Deanna smiled to show Sam she wasn't angry any more. "Great!" She said in a tone that sounded false even to her own ears. "I'm dying for a beer. We could head on out there - after we change of course..." Dee gestured down at her smart pantsuit. "I couldn't hook up with anyone wearing these."

Sam pursed her lips in disapproval and Dee was disappointed that this time she hadn't managed to extract an eye roll.

"You go ahead, I'm really not feeling in the mood to watch you flirt your way into some poor guy's bed." She said, closing the laptop and taking a few more bites of salad.

"You should, you might learn something." Dee winked. "Maybe if you get laid you'll stop being so uptight all the time!"

"I am not uptight!" Sam protested

"Sure you are," Deanna laughed, and they argued their way back to the motel.


	5. Chapter 5

She still felt a little guilty about leaving Sammy behind, but her sister had assured her that she was fine, sitting on the ugly motel bed with her laptop and a cup of instant hot chocolate. Sam had changed back into jeans and a flannel shirt as soon as she got in, the 'agent suits' hung back up to keep them as crease free as possible. Dee herself had cleaned her teeth and brushed her hair, clumsily lined her eyes with eyeliner, hoping people would mistake her shaky application for 'the smoky look.' A pair of black jeans and a semi-sheer top worn under Sam's leather jacket (this one was stylish and didn't smell like whiskey) completed her look, the one that said 'I'm not paying for my drinks tonight.'

"You know you're going to find a werewolf, not get laid." Sam had said when she'd shown her what she was wearing. Dee fiddled with her top, then dropped her amulet down the front, between her breasts so it couldn't be seen.

"Well I know which one I'm hoping for." Dee giggled, grabbing the keys to the Impala and setting off.

The Four Waters was pretty crowded, but Dee managed to slip into a seat at the bar. Around her were young twenty-somethings, around her age but maybe closer to Sam's. They were all dressed pretty smartly, and given that it was still early, Dee assumed that they'd just come from work. They all looked like they were having a good time, laughing in the padded booths around the side or leaning on the bar ordering drinks. Speaking of drinks, she caught the barman's attention.

"Hey, I'll have a Scotch please, neat." Dee said, as he nodded.

"I can make it a double for only seventy-five cents extra if you'd like?" He said. He had blue eyes and was pretty in a kind of pixie-ish way.

"You're an angel, I'd kill for a double right now."

He laughed, "Been a long day?" He asked

"Yeah, something like that. You hear about that Fred Millbray dude? The one that got his heart ripped out by some dog?" Dee tried to swing the conversation round to what she wanted to talk about.

"I did... Real shame about him. I went to school with his son, the whole family's real cut up about it." He said, mixing drinks for other customers, but shouting to her over the noise.

She leant forward so he could hear her better. "I heard another guy went the same way. A homeless man, used to kip outside your service entrance?"

"Oh yeah, Warren. Lovely bloke, used to invite him in for a drink when I closed down the bar." The rush for drinks quietened down a little bit, and the barman folded his arms on the bar as Dee sipped her drink slowly.

"So you see any wild animals around?" Dee nudged the man, trying to get information from him without it seeming like she wanted it.

He frowned. "No, nothing like that around here. That's the thing... It's so unusual."

"Think it could have been murder?" Dee said, lowering her voice to a whisper, pretending she was more drunk than she was.

"Well if the police said..." But the attractive barman broke off his sentence as a group of rowdy young men walked through the door. They were already a little drunk, clearly having gone to a different bar before hand (and it was only seven!) The barman shook his head.

"Since that one," he pointed to a youth with shaggy hair in the centre of the small group, "arrived in town last month, that group has given me nothing but trouble. Turning up drunk everywhere... Week before Warren died, they kick the poor man up and down the street just for getting in their way. I had to call the police, but by the time they got here the lads had gone. Warren didn't want me to complain, and he didn't want to press charges, but I wish I'd insisted now..."

Dee turned around to look at the boys, not much older than the legal drinking age. Since they'd walked in, the atmosphere of the room had changed. The shaggy haired one that the barman had pointed out was laughing, all the attention of his friends on him. They were having fun, but the people around him had stiffened and the roar of conversation had lulled a little bit.

"Arrived last month?" Deanna held her tumbler out for a refill.

"Yeah..." The barman said, pouring her another drink with an expert hand.

"What's his name?" She asked

"Logan McLeod, I think," he said, frowning in concentration as he thought. "Something Scottish anyway."

"Thanks barman," Dee smiled at him, holding up her drink.

"No problem, call me Tom" He said, his attention being called away from Dee as various people clamoured for drinks.

Dee shifted her seat away from the bar, so she could keep an eye on Logan McLeod and his group of adoring friends. "Gotcha, you little sucker," She murmured into her glass.


	6. Chapter 6

An hour later, Dee began to get bored. The youths were getting completely drunk, some of Logan's friends were stumbling rather than walking to the bar. She ran her hand through her hair, wincing when she caught a knot, and thought again about cutting it all off. When she'd been younger, Dad had cut it every six months with kitchen scissors, making sure it didn't get in her eyes when she fought. Dee hadn't minded much, if only because the rare times she saw herself were in crappy motel mirrors, and if she got teased at school...well what did it matter, she'd be gone in a week anyway. But when she got to thirteen she refused to let Dad cut it any more and she'd let it grow long, down to her shoulders. Now it was a dirty blonde colour, in waves that made tangles hard to brush out. She liked being able to flick it and toss it around like a proper girl. Its only drawback was that it did get in her eyes when she fought... Dad being right, again. Shoving back the thoughts, she pulled her hair back into a rough pony tail, securing it with an elastic band.

Dee glanced back to Logan and his friends, only to discover with a thrill of shock that the boys had vanished. She downed the rest of her whiskey in one, grimacing against the burn in her throat, then set off to follow them. Wisconsin wasn't really a gun-toting state, so she'd left all her fire-arms in the Impala, along with the silver bullets that would have killed Logan. However, what she did have was a silver knife, safe in a sheath inside her jeans, the handle just poking up above her belt.

The cold air outside the bar was like a slap to the face for Dee, sobering her up immediately. She shivered and glanced left and right. Spotting the group heading towards Memorial Way, their drunken songs torn away from their lips by the wind, Dee followed them, thankful she'd decided not to wear heels. Army boots didn't scream 'I'm a classy female,' but they could break a man's shinbone if she stomped hard enough.

She pulled the jacket close around her and kept her head down, pony tail bobbing as she walked. The youths were meandering slowly, roaring and laughing at things that really weren't funny. Dee was cold, fed up with following these kids around, and getting a bit jumpy. She didn't know how werewolves were affected by drink, but she didn't want to find another dead body tomorrow morning.

Eventually, finally, the group stopped outside a three storey building, clearly an apartment block for the young professional, judging by all the smokey glass and the complex buzzer-system. Deanna was close enough to hear what they said.

"Come on Logan, come out... We're gonna go on to Barney's... It's only eight." The slurred speech of one of his friends.

"Nah I can't, sorry guys... I've got work in the morning." Logan said, not sounding a lot more sober than his friends did.

They protested, but the werewolf wasn't hearing any of it. Eventually they sloped off, Logan quickly forgotten as they began singing again.

The door was closing quickly, but Dee managed to jam her toe inside before it slammed shut, slipping inside quietly. The entry way was deserted, fortunately this apartment block wasn't so snazzy that it came with its own concierge. It was all cream stone and glass, with the little mailboxes all lined up against one wall. A quick glance at it told her which flat Logan lived in, up on the first floor.

She took the stairs, fingering the knife on her hip. Her heart was beating fast, like it always did before a fight. Dee's hand was shaking as she pressed the doorbell, hoping that Logan would open the door for her. He did. They always did. In a way, being a woman was her greatest asset. People saw a blonde standing outside their door and they never, for one second, assume that she's about to stab them to death.

"Heyy..." He drawled, looking her up and down in a way Dee only put up with because she was about to kill him.

"Can I come in, Logan?" She said, tipping her head on one side and pouting somewhat.

"Yeah, uhh sure gorgeous... I'm just..." Dee could smell frozen pizza being cooked in the oven.

"It's okay, I just want to ask you a few questions, Logan." Dee knew she only had a while before he sobered up enough to tell her to get out.

"Go ahead..." He said, looking confused, but not suspicious. Not yet.

"Why did you kill Warren Rogers?" Dee said, one hand on her hip just in case she had to pull her knife out.

"What? I didn't did I?" Logan said. He looked positively stunned. "Oh god... we kicked him about a bit... I thought he'd be okay." He started crying, ugly sobs that echoed around the quiet room.

It wasn't the confession Dee wanted, so she pressed on. "What about Fred Millbray. You kill him too?" She said

Logan looked up, with a tear stained face. "What? No! I didn't kill Fred... That was a wild animal!"

Dee sauntered a little closer to the shaggy-haired youth. "Hearts were missing from both of them. That's what you guys like isn't it?" She pointed towards the smell of pizza. "Not pizza you're hungry for, is it Logan? Looking forward to some lovely human heart tonight? Oh I bet you are..."

Logan was looking at her like she was crazy. The tear tracks on his cheeks were drying fast. "What the fuck are you talking about? Are you high? What do you mean, guys like me?"

"You're a werewolf Logan, and I'm here to kill you." Dee said, right up in his face, snarling.

"Whaat?" Logan pushed Dee away from him a bit, but stumbled in the process. He wasn't too steady on his feet. "A werewolf? Are you fucking mad? Get out of here, I'm calling the cops!" He made to move away from her, but Dee pulled his arm back into a lock, using his own body weight against him.

He crumpled, shouting at her. Dee pressed a knee into his back as he lay spreadeagled on the floor, sniffing from the pain in his arm. She pulled out the knife and drew an experimental cut on his back.

Logan swore, but there was nothing worse. His skin didn't blister, no reaction at all. Maybe he hadn't been lying.

"Oh shit." Dee swore.


	7. Chapter 7

It was nine o'clock and Dee was back at the bar, drowning the _embarrassment _of the last hour in another double Scotch. Tom the barman had grinned at her as she came in, still busy serving drinks. The after work crowd had been replaced by a different one. This was was all dressed up, drinking to get drunk so they could go out to a club. They all had their dancing outfits on, women in skyscraper heels and the men shuffling nervously about them, competing for attention. Dee slumped over the bar, despondent. Finding her werewolf had not gone well. She decided to have a couple more drinks, then roll back to the motel. She and Sammy could start again in the morning.

With that aim in mind, she ordered a refill. Just as she was scrabbling in her pocket for change to pay, a man's voice came over her head.

"Same again please barman, I'll pay for both."

Dee relaxed. Finally, her first free drink of the evening. She smiled up at her knight with a shining wallet only to do a double take when she realised it was Taylor Robinson.

"Oh hey" she said, cocking her head and smiling at him. He _was _handsome, especially now he was out of work clothes. He was dressed in a casual button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dark jeans, a gold watch glinting on his wrist.

"Hello there," He said, smiling back. "Now that I've bought you a drink, do I get to know your name?"

Dee laughed, placing a hand on his forearm as she leant into him. "I'm Deanna," she breathed. "But you can call me Dee." A little part of her brain recognised she was getting drunk, but it didn't stop her from accepting Taylor's gift and sipping it with a grin.

"Nice to meet you Dee," Taylor raised his glass to her. "So how's the story going?"

It took Dee's brain a couple of seconds to clunk back into gear and realise he was talking about their cover story from earlier that day.

"Yeah, it's going well... We're working stuff out." She giggled, twisting a strand of her ponytail in her fingers. Taylor's eyes followed her hand as twirled it, then flicked back to her face as she licked her lips a little.

"That's good to know." Taylor paid for another drink for her, asking for shots. Dee was reckless. She wanted to show off, show how well she could drink. She gulped it down, ignoring the stinging taste of the vodka on the way down.

"Wow, I'm impressed. There's not many who can drink like that." Taylor said. He was flattering her, his voice soft. Dee decided she was going to go home with him.

The conversation and drinks started blurring a little bit from that point, but she remembered that he was hilariously funny and he smiled a lot.

At about eleven, maybe half past, he suggested going back to his for coffee. "It's not far," he said, "I live on Memorial Way, it's only a five minute walk."

Dee gladly accepted, her head buzzing from all the alcohol. With his help she got off the bar stool, stumbling a bit as she tried to walk in a straight line to the door. Taylor propped her up, she grabbing his arm as they walked into the cool night air.

This time, she was too far gone for it to sober her up much. Taylor chatted beside her and she laughed, but she couldn't really hear what he was saying. She glanced around at the street lights as they slid into two and then back to one. The full moon hung in the sky, juddering like a stuck record. _Gawd _she was drunk. She decided to only accept the offer of coffee and then clear off. Dee liked having sex, sure, but she also liked remembering it in the morning.

Before she knew it, she was in Taylor's apartment. The interior was similar to Logan's... was it three hours ago already? Taylor helped her take her leather jacket off, slipping it over a dining room chair.

"I'm gonna go and put the coffee on" he said. "You make yourself comfortable."

Dee wandered over to the window, opening a bit to stick her head out and breathe in some more cold air. There was a lovely view of the park in front of her, some people jogging along the routes. To her left she could see the bright lights of Memorial Way, and if she craned her neck, she could still just about see The Four Waters. She breathed in and out, wondering what Sam would say if she could see her now.

xxx

Sam was sitting up in bed, on her laptop, waiting for Dee to come back. There was no point in trying to get to sleep, cause she'd just get woken up again by Dee coming in and giggling. She was on the website for the Tribune, the paper that Taylor Robinson worked for, trying to pick up any more clues about the werewolf from his article. The first death; that of Warren Rogers, had happened about about a month ago, so she was scouting for anything from that time too. It was a boring, ardous task, looking through the newspaper archives, so she tried narrowing it down to anything Taylor Robinson had written.

He had his own little profile on the staff page, with a photo and a bit of information about him.

_"Taylor Robinson is the newest addition to our team, having moved here only two months ago! His previous experience includes having worked for the Hastings Tribune in Nebraska, and being a freelance journalist in the same state." _

Sam's heart jumped into her mouth. Two months ago? He was new in town, moved just before the attacks started. Could it be? She quickly googled the Hastings Tribune, a small newspaper. Most of the front page was local news, and searching the archives for deaths in the last three months produced only one result. A Yvonne Richards, twenty four, from Hastings, had been found with her heart ripped out in a nearby park.

It couldn't just be a coincidence. Sam closed the laptop and flung on her coat, stuffing a small handgun with modified silver bullets into the magazine. As she ran towards the door she tied her hair up in a bun, hoping it wouldn't come undone.

Cursing Dee for having taken the Impala, and counting her blessings that the motel wasn't too far out of town, she began to jog towards The Four Waters.


	8. Chapter 8

Dee was distracted from looking out of the window by Taylor bringing her a steaming cup of black coffee.

"Oh god, thank you ever so much." She said, as they sat down on his sofa to drink it. Dee spooned sugar into hers to take away the bitter taste, stirring it slowly and inhaling the smell. Taylor sipped his, smiling at Dee over the cup. They didn't make much conversation as they drank, but Dee could feel herself sobering up slightly, her vision returning to normal as she was able to focus on things. She set the cup down on the glass coffee table, her hand shaking from the sudden rush. She turned to face Taylor, in order to tell him that she wouldn't be staying the night when he caught her off guard by kissing her.

He tasted like whiskey and coffee, warm against her mouth. She relaxed a little bit, he was a good kisser, and she was sobering up a bit... He brought his hand up to the back of her neck to nudge her into a different angle, but she pushed a little against his chest. Not a lot, just enough to show that she didn't want to go ahead with it.

"Sorry," Taylor blushed a bit as Dee smacked her lips together, trying to get rid of the moisture that he'd left.

"No, it's okay... I just don't... you know." She said, knowing she wasn't getting her point across.

"It's fine, I understand." Taylor stood up and grabbed the coffee mugs, taking them back into the kitchen. Dee slipped her jacket back on, waiting for him to come back so that she could make her apologies and leave.

When he came back, however, he looked different. His pupils had narrowed, and his eyes were... Were they yellower?

"Oh crap..." Dee reached for her knife but she was too slow. Taylor jumped on top of her, knocking her to the ground with all the force of a freight train. She lay there for a moment, winded, desperately trying to suck air into her lungs as Taylor straddled her.

She groaned as his weight dropped onto her, making her unable to even wriggle. She tried to get her knees up, but he was sitting on those too, making her gasp as pressure was put on her joints. He leant over and twisted her wrist until she let go of the knife, knocking it a few metres away.

"That wasn't very nice," he hissed in Dee's ear, making goosebumps rise on her neck. "We were having _such _a nice time and then you go and bring _silver _to the party."

"You're the werewolf!" Dee choked out, still trying to buck him off to no avail.

"Of _course _I am... This town is sooo dull. I managed to kill two birds with one stone..." Taylor laughed, gripping Dee tight by the shoulders. She could hear his nails grow into claws... They were digging into her skin.

"What do you mean?" If she kept him talking, she might be able to figure something out.

"Well I get my fill of human hearts," he traced a line over Dee's chest. Her heart was beating so loudly she swore it was going to just jump out her chest and into his hand. "And I get to write gruesome, interesting stories that fill the front page. No one wants to read about county fairs do they, hmm?"

Dee shook her head, trying to work her phone out of her jacket pocket.

"And it's such a shame I have to kill you... We were having such a good time. You're _so _pretty." He said, stroking her hair with his claws, casually knocking her phone across the room as well. Dee shivered. 'Keep him talking, come on Dee,' she told herself.

"I'm a hunter." She said bravely, "I can kill you right now," Her voice was shaky "If you get off me, I'll let you go."

Taylor laughed "Oh sweetie, I knew you were a hunter. I told you, I'm extremely good friends with a certain Baz Morgan. When you turned up, she called me straight away. Who else masquerades as a student, then switches to an FBI agent when it suits them? And who brings a silver knife to a _one night stand_." He said, right up against her ear. She could feel his fangs brush her and she shuddered.

"Lucky for you, I like to play with my food before I eat it." He whispered, as he started peeling off Dee's leather jacket.

Oh god.

xxx

Sam walked into The Four Waters and knew immediately that Dee wasn't there. She caught the eye of the barman from across the room and strolled over to him, doing her best to look casual.

"Hey," she said, flicking her hair at him and smiling. "I'm looking for a girl who was in here, shorter than me, blonde? Probably drinking whiskey and cursing like a sailor..."

The barman laughed, showing a set of polished white teeth. "I know exactly who you mean... Yeah she was here, asking me about Fred Millbray." He said

"Is she still here? Did you see her leave?" Sam's questions were rushed.

"No, she left about twenty minutes ago with a tall guy... Er... big chin, brown hair? Flashing a lot of cash around?"

Taylor Robinson. Oh fuck.

Sam nodded, swallowing nervously. "Er, thanks" she said, then turned tail and ran. She headed towards the park, running a quick route around it, trying to see if Dee was there. She called her name a couple of times, but she wasn't there. The foliage was dark and overwhelming, Sam was getting prickles on the back of her neck.

She looked up and surveyed the surrounding apartment blocks. There were lights on in a few of them, but most had blinds drawn over them. There was one, two floors up that directly overlooked the park. A blonde woman had her head stuck outside the window, and as Sam watched, she drew it back inside as a man approached her.

Dee. It had to be. Oh she was in so much trouble.

Sam crouched down in the street, trying to look innocuous as she picked the lock on the apartment building's front door. Swinging it open, the motion sensor light went on, momentarily blinding her. Sam blinked, then pulled out her gun from where it was stuck down the back of her jeans and palmed it nervously, flicking the safety off. Casting her mind back to the view from the park, she made her way to the stairs, climbing up to the floor where Taylor Robinson's apartment was.

She could feel herself sweating, despite the cold of the stairwell. She breathed in and out a couple of times, then launched her foot at the lock on Robinson's apartment door, busting it open.

He looked up, eyes yellow, pupils black slits, fangs fully exposed. Sam raised the gun to shoulder height.

"Get off her or I'll shoot!" Dee was lying underneath him, gasping for breath in just her sheer top. Now there were rents in it where Taylor had raked his claws, blood dripping from numerous cuts.

Taylor jumped to his feet and hissed, rushing for Sam. She ducked as he leapt over her, turning quickly as he skidded to a halt near the ruined front door. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dee scrabbling for her knife. She shot once, but Taylor moved far too fast to see. The bullet _flunked _into the wood of the door frame.

Suddenly, he was upon her, hands around her throat. He pushed her up against the wall, her feet pedaling for purchase. She cried out, dropping the gun as her hands few to her throat. She clawed at his hands madly, trying to get him to drop her.

"Stupid women." Taylor hissed, eyes sparking, claws digging into Sam's throat. "Why don't you just run back to Daddy. He'll look after you. _Women can't be Hunter- _ack"

He emitted a sudden gasp as the air was driven from his lungs by Dee's silver knife, thrust through his back. Sam felt his hands go slack around her neck, she slid down the wall, sucking in air as the black spots slowly receded from her vision.

The skin around the werewolf's wound was turning a deep, dark red. It blistered horribly, layers of skin burning off to reveal the pink flesh underneath.

Dee kicked his body savagely before wrenching her knife out of his back and wiping it on Taylor's smart shirt.

"Women can't be Hunters. Fuck, say it again." She said. And then she spat on him.


	9. Chapter 9

Back in the Impala that Dee had left parked off Memorial Way, the adrenaline started to wear off, and unfortunately, so did the alcohol. She had so many claw marks on her arms, shoulders, stomach and sternum. They stung like mad, the pain making her eyes water. Sam was talking to her but she couldn't quite hear, all her concentration going on the pain that was taking up her body.

She didn't even notice getting back to the motel, Sam cutting off the blouse... 'I liked that blouse...' but she wasn't sure if she said it out loud or not. Then;

"FUCK. OH FUCKING HELL SAMMY." She sat bolt upright, "What _was _that?"

"Disinfectant. Now stop being such a dick and take it like a woman." Her sister said, running cotton wool balls soaked in the stuff over Dee's many cuts.

Deanna swore like a sailor, biting her lip as tears ran down her face completely unbidden. The pain gradually faded, just leaving a delicate throbbing as Sam stuck plaster tape over most of them, and wrapped a gauze bandage round the big one on her lower arm.

"Fortunately they aren't too big, you won't need stitches. Just keep them dry and you should be fine in a few weeks." Sam said, patting her sister's leg and fetching her a glass of brandy to dull the pain. Dee waved it away, however. She'd had enough of being drunk for one day. So she and Sammy sat in silence for a while as the wind that had been blowing earlier became rain and pounded at the windows.

Dee picked up Dad's journal from Sam's bed, flicking through the thick, collaged pages.

"So Dad passed through here before Taylor came to town, because otherwise he would have written something, right?" She said.

Sam shrugged. "Yeah, but he could have been here long before that. We don't know it was directly before." She said noncommittally.

"Well, at best we're two months behind him. At worst we have no clue, which is no different from usual." Deanna said.

"Sure, yep." Sam didn't meet Dee's eyes.

"Don't you want to find Dad?" Dee tried not to make her voice sound too whiny.

"Course I do Dee." Sam said, but they could both hear the lack of conviction in her voice.

"Fine." Dee put the book down and rolled over to sleep.

xxx

The next morning the girls packed up early, packing their bags into the Impala, Dee wincing as her cuts brushed against her clothes when she got dressed. It was raining, a slow drizzle under grey skies that did nothing for her mood.

"So." She said as she got into the car, Sam handing her hot coffee in a cardboard cup. She balanced it between her knees as she started the engine of the Impala, smiling at the familiar roar.

"Where to next?"


	10. Chapter 10 - Calls from Home

"Classic vengeful spirit... That's what it sounds like to me, Dee. What do you think?" Sam said. She just wished her sister would pay attention. Deanna was sprawled out on the motel bed, her mood matching the ugly brown and orange sheets.

"Yeah, vengeful spirit, sure." Dee said, staring at the ceiling. Sam could have throttled her. She was wearing a black vest-top and jeans, freckled creeping down to her shoulders from her face, green eyes closed, in a world of her own. Usually, Sam would have let her be, but she was fed up of the way Deanna was acting. Dee had _wanted _to find Dad. She'd been the one who had dragged Sam out of Stanford for god's sake, needing her help to find him. And then, every single two-bit ghost, spirit, vampire or werewolf had become Deanna's personal enemy. At the rate they were moving, they were still two or three months behind their father, every town they passed through had its share of Supernatural troubles, and Dee had to fight them al

"Come on Dee, just look at the case with me. It won't take long." Sam said, a faint note of pleading entering her voice.

With a tired groan, Deanna pulled herself off the bed into a slumped sitting position. She regarded Sam, then sighing, moved to the shabby motel fridge and pulled out two beers.

"You want one?" She asked, holding it out to Sam.

Sam shook her head. "We're going to need to concentrate Dee. If you want to gank every bad thing between us and Dad, you're gonna need to pull your finger out and actually do something about it. Like look at this case." She said. She slammed her laptop down on the formica table a little harder than she'd meant to.

Dee didn't react, just shrugged as though to say 'suit yourself,' and put the second beer back in the fridge and closed the door with a clatter. Beer was the only thing in there. Throwing the cap onto the stained carpet, she slouched back over the the table, pulling out the chair and throwing herself into it. Sam had to tell herself not to laugh. Dee's bottom lip was sticking out, a sulky expression on her face. She looked like a petulant child.

"Stop being an arse Dee. Are you PMSing?" She poked her sister in one of the arms she'd folded, carefully avoiding the scab that had formed over the werewolf's claw cuts.

Deanna scowled and uncrossed her arms. "No of course not. That's next week anyway. There's nothing wrong with me."

Sam gave her what she hoped was a long, stern look, but decided to let it go.

"Okay so Muriel and Bill Hartman move into their new home, having sized down after their kids went off to college. Couple of weeks in they report hearing noises in the wall, get freaked out because it's newly built so they call in the developer as well as pest control." Sam said, then pulled out a sheaf of papers from her messenger bag, slung over the chair back. She extracted a newspaper with the newspaper headline:

"_Bizarre death in new property!" _

Sam continued "Developer sits down with our retired couple, has a cup of coffee, etc. The pest control man goes around the house looking for the pests in the walls. Five minutes in they hear screams, rush in and find pest control dead. But not just dead." Sam paused, pursing her lips in distaste. "His throat was slit first, then his eyeballs were gouged out and placed in his hands. That's how he was found. Poor old Muriel's in hospital for shock while Bill stays with relatives."

Dee seemed to have her head a little more in the game after having drunk half her beer. She started shredding the label off as Sam was talking, but she was definitely listening.

"You're right." She said. "It does sound like a vengeful spirit... weird death like that is like a big neon arrow." Dee bit at a hangnail. "Only thing is, it's a new property. Usually vengeful spirits come with old houses, a bit like damp or bad carpets."

"The land could have been used for something else in the past. Like a cemetery, the ghost's old house... It could be where it's buried." Sam said.

"It's gonna be a fucking nightmare if the body's buried under the foundations." Dee said, sighing.

"Yeah, it would be..." Sam agreed, thinking of all the cold nights they'd spent digging up graves. The only thing to look forward to was the blazing warmth of the rapidly incinerated corpse at the end. And putting an end to people's problems. Obviously. Deanna stretched her legs out under the table, abandoning the label to put her hands behind her head. She let out a long, low whistle, then rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

Then; "better get the agent suits on, Sammy."


	11. Chapter 11

"I don't understand." Muriel Hartman was about sixty years old but looked fifty-five, with hair that had clearly been dyed more than once and was now shot through with white. This, and the pink smears of colour across her eyelids and cheeks all showed a woman who had been vain once, but whose recent experiences had put an end to it. Her voice shook when she spoke, constantly looking at her husband, who held her hand for support from his spot at the side of her hospital bed. "The police already asked me all these questions."

Sam was using her sympathetic professional voice that she'd honed to a tee in twelfth grade. "I know Mrs. Hartman, but we're really taking the death of Mr. Odoki very seriously, considering the violent nature of it."

Mrs. Hartman glanced at her husband again and Sam felt an irrational wave of anger roll over her. 'You don't need his permission to speak!' She thought, fuming silently. But it seemed she did, because as soon as he nodded at her, she spoke again;

"Alright then, what was it you asked?"

"Mrs Hartman, you said the property was new when you moved into it?" Dee took over seamlessly.

"Yes, they're building whole swathes of retirement bungalows on that side of town, I believe." She said. "Bill and I have had our eye on one ever since our eldest, Cathy, moved out. I think there were problems with the construction though... Some kind of setback." At this, Sam and Dee glanced at each other. As in supernatural setbacks? They were both thinking it.

"So we didn't manage to move in until earlier this year." Mrs Hartman prattled on, oblivious to the sisters' sidelong glances. "Really nice little place, small and neat you see, not big and cavernous like our old place. Absolute nightmare to clean, I'll tell you that."

Sam watched Dee grimace in a bad imitation of a polite smile, it not quite reaching her eyes. "And when did you start hearing the noises?" Sam said, knowing it was her turn to speak.

"About two months into our move, isn't that right Bill?" She said, casting another look at her husband, who nodded seriously.

"Could you describe the noises for us?" Dee said, cutting in again.

"It was strange. There'd be scrabbling, like rats scratching on the inside of the walls, and sounds like running feet, moving from one place to another. But the property developer told us that there couldn't be anything inside the walls - it's a new property, the walls are only a foot wide... He said nothing could have got inside and still be alive." Muriel said.

"And Mr and Mrs Hartman, have you noticed anything else unusual about the house, cold spots, weird smells - things like that?" Sam asked the question that _always_ provoked a suspicious reaction.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Bill Hartman snapped.

'_Hallelujah the husband can speak._' But Sam kept her thoughts to herself.

"We're just pursuing several lines of enquiry." Dee said smoothly, using the catch-all phrase that meant 'We're experienced feds, now fuck off.'

But it worked. The little pink woman and her husband nodded, not happy, but not about to start a fuss either. "Yes, I did notice that the air in the living room - where Mr. Odoki was found... Was a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house. My breath came out in steam..." Mrs. Hartman said, gesticulating with the hand that wasn't being held by her husband. "But of course, I was too preoccupied with Mr. Odoki himself to really think about it."

"Of course, we understand completely. Thank you for your time, Mrs and Mr Hartman." Dee said, using that polite smile again. Sam followed suit and together they left the room.

"So what do you think?" Sam asked, once they were outside in the bright morning air.

"Definitely vengeful spirit. The MO's perfect." Dee grimaced. "Almost too perfect."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Thank our guardian angel for perfect. I'm going to go and look at the council records - see if they have any deaths that match Mr. Odoki's. You go over to the property developer and ask if what the land was before they bought it up."

She could just about hear Dee muttering under her breath as her sister walked away. "It'll all match up... Just you wait and see."


	12. Chapter 12

They met up for lunch in a diner with sticky tables and one too many gurgling children. Dee stared over Sam's shoulder at a pretty brunette trying to control three of the things, feeding one on her knee, holding the other one down in its seat and shouting at the third to eat its salad and _stop flicking dressing at your sister. _Oh and now she had plastic cheese in her hair.

"Ahh now I know why I don't like children." Dee said, propping her chin on her hand and poking at her chicken club with an unenthusiastic fork.

"They're adorable," said Sam, who hadn't looked up from her case notes.

"Oh yeah... the harassed and worn down mother look is so in this season." Dee said

At that Sam looked up, chewing. She swallowed her mouthful of tuna salad and craned her head round to look at what Dee was staring at. Sam sighed as she turned back around.

"Concentrate, okay Dee? What did you find out?" She asked

"Well, it's pretty much as I predicted. Up until 1956, the land was owned by a Mr William Greenwood - his family moved up from the Deep South after abolition." She took a massive bite of sandwich and continued with her mouth full, ignoring Sam's look of distaste. "Then, round about World War Two, family runs out of money and starts selling up the land. The last packet, including the family house, was bought by the council around the 1960s. Then, last year, the land was sold off to our property developer, who decides to use it to build retirement bungalows. The whole estate was dug up and you'll never guess what they found..."

"Yeah, I think I can." Sam interrupted. "I had a look at the council's records of mysterious deaths. Right at the beginning of the construction work on the estate, they found a body. Badly decomposed, probably been there about forty years..."

Dee nodded, confirming the story as the same as the one she'd heard.

"It's believed to be Anne Greenwood, William's daughter. Lot of deep rooted racism in that family... When he found out his daughter had fallen in love with a black man he slit her throat and gouged out her eyes so that she could never look at another man in lust again." Sam said.

"You'd think just killing her would have done the job fine." Dee snorted, earning her an eye roll.

"It's not something to joke about, Dee. Anne is taking revenge on people living on that land now. We have to find her bones and stop her." Sam said

"But some things just don't add up Sam," Dee put her sandwich down and wiped her fingers on her napkin. "The property developer said when they found the bones, they gave them a decent burial along with the rest of her family in the old cemetery on the other side of town. Shouldn't a vengeful spirit be tied to just haunting that place? What's she doing still on the estate? And I asked him about the problems his team had had with construction. They weren't our kind of gig at all, just normal stuff like equipment going missing, things like that." Sam's sister cast her a pleading look. "We should get out of here, it's just some psycho, nothing supernatural."

"But everything makes sense! The MO, the bones... everything!" Sam protested.

'_Of course it's something supernatural. Things like this don't just happen.' _"There weren't any signs of forced entry." She said "It's got to be a ghost, or a spirit. Come on Dee, let's just salt and burn the bones and we can be out of here with a clear conscience."

Deanna rolled her eyes and picked her sandwich back up. "Okay, but you owe me." She took a bite. "Oh and I want to take a look at the corpse."

xxx

Doctor Grimley was a short, lopsided man with grey hair and stains on the front of his lab coat. He looked at their IDs, clearly unimpressed, and sniffed;

"They make women Feds now do they?" He said, limping towards his desk, which was disgustingly messy, a half eaten egg sandwich sweating next to a brain pickled in formaldehyde.

"Have been doing for quite some time Doctor." Sam said good-naturedly as she slipped her ID back in her purse. "We're actually rather good at it, believe it or not."

He sniffed again, clearly not believing it. "You're here to see Adebambo Odoki?" He said.

"The pest control man from the housing development, yes." Sam said.

Doctor Grimley grinned evilly. "Hope you've got a strong stomach girls, this one's a shocker."

As vile as the man was, Sam had to admit he was a competent pathologist. He rolled out the body from it's alcove in the wall and cleared his throat. As the sheet was lifted back, Sam heard Dee shuffle a bit next to her. Where the eyes should have been were two, ragged, red holes. They were so raw against the dark brown colour of the man's skin that Sam was oddly transfixed by the juxtaposition.

"The cause of death was the cut to his throat," he said, pointing out the smoothly sliced skin with a latex-gloved finger. "It's deeper than necessary for a victim to bleed to death, so I guess he must have died immediately. If the cut had been shallower, Mr Odoki would still have been alive when the Hartmans entered the room." Here the Doctor hesitated before drawing back the sheet.

The corpse's hands were empty now, but there were pools of cracked and drying blood welled in his cupped palms. The Doctor excused himself for a second, to come back with a small jar in which were floating the man's eyeballs. Sam tasted bile in her mouth, but forced herself to swallow and spoke in a slightly shaky tone.

"But then the timings don't make sense... If the Hartmans heard the screams and came running straight away, how could the perpetrator have had time to pull out the eyeballs and place them in the dead man's hands?" She asked

"The only reason the Hartmans aren't under suspicion is because of the gloriously fortunate alibi of the property developer. The officer who's in charge of the investigation is under the impression that the murderer is some kind of sicko who takes pleasure in mimicking his victim's pain." The Doctor replied.

"What do you think?" Dee asked

"I'm inclined to agree. The victim's throat was slit from behind, he wouldn't have seen his attacker at all. Then, he would have been dead before he could cry out. If we assume the person who did it extracted his eyeballs and only then screamed in order to attract the others in the house - that's how the timings make sense. He probably gets a thrill from how close he comes to being caught." Doctor Grimley folded the sheet back over the poor man's desecrated face and pushed the trolley back. Snapping off the latex gloves, he reverted back into unpleasant old man.

"So if that's all, you can leave, I've got my lunch to eat."

"You're right." Dee said, the sunlight hitting her face as they left the forensics lab. "MO is exactly the same... But the screams are fucking weird. Can ghosts scream?"

"No idea. Does it matter? We know it was Anne. Let's just wait until nightfall and then head over to the cemetery with a couple of shovels and a box of table salt." Sam stuck her hands in her coat pockets and refused to think about why Dee was being so weird about this case.


	13. Chapter 13

It was really fucking cold, and really fucking dark. They'd had to leave the Impala at the cemetery gates, though walking with her hands tucked in her armpits, Sam mused about the fact that at least this was one place that hadn't become a drive through yet. Dee was carrying a shovel in one hand and a torch in the other, its powerful beam lighting up the way before them. It was still hard to find a firm footing though, the tussocks and raised graves provided plenty of chances for Sam to face plant the ground. She'd always been a little bit gangly, a lot taller than most other girls her age, and it seemed like the brain signals took a while longer to reach the end of her limbs. She just thanked whoever was out there that her Dad hadn't been normal, and tried to make her do ballet as a child. She hitched the rucksack containing a box of salt and a jerry can of petrol up onto her shoulder, huffing and watching as her breath came out as a cloud of air.

"Hey, I think this is it." Dee's low voice cut through the dark night air, flashing the torch beam onto a small tombstone, sombre and lonely. It was new, only a year old, probably the cheapest headstone the funeral parlour had to offer. After all, the property development had buried her at their own expense. Sam supposed she should be thankful that they'd even done that. Most would have just thrown her away. '_Imagine trying to burn those bones...' _she thought as she set the bag down, checking her watch. It was five past two in the morning. Dee rolled her neck and cracked her knuckles, then shifted the shovel in her grip, passing the torch to Sam.

"What's my personal best again?" Dee asked as Sam set the timer

"One hour forty two, but you had just had one of those five hour energy boost things. I'll take over halfway if you need me to." She said

"Nah, I think I can cope." Dee said, flashing Sam a grin that looked far too creepy lit up by torchlight and standing by a grave.

Seeing as they didn't have two shovels, the only thing Sam could do was stand and watch, feeling her toes become number by the second. Dee didn't seem to be plagued by the same problem. Within minutes she had stripped down to her vest-top, despite the cold night air, and sweat was dripping down her up-turned nose, coating her back and chest. Sam turned the torch a little bit as the grave got deeper, so Dee could see where she was digging. The mound of earth next to the grave grew higher as her older sister's breaths became more laboured.

"I think... I think I'm nearly there Sammy," Dee panted from within the grave. There were a few more scoops of dirt, then Sam heard the sweetest sound; that of a shovel knocking on hard wood. She leant over the edge of the grave, as Dee, covered in mud and sweat, lifted up the shovel to crack it down _hard _on the hinges of the coffin. A groan, a creak as the lid was lifted off and the smell of death wafted up to her. She held the torch over the black pit as Dee shook back her hair and whistled.

"Well death has not been kind to you, Annie dear." Dee said, and she was right. A small skeleton lay hunched in the bottom of the cheap wooden coffin, the smallest bones - toes, fingers, vertebrae, already dissolved. The rest were going the same way, flakes and cracks appearing all over the place. There was no indication that the girl had had her eyes torn out. Skeletons are all the same underneath, after all. Sam tried not to feel a small pang of sadness for the girl killed by her own father for the crime of falling for the wrong guy.

"Hey, help me up." The grave, being six feet deep, was a little higher than Dee's head.

"What was that, short-arse?" Sam said, laughing at her sister trying to haul herself out. Her laughter broke the silence and the little knot of sadness dissolved a little bit. Her sister snorted from inside the grave.

"Fuck off Sam, just get me out. I don't like standing next to little no-eyes here." She said

Sam obliged, pulling her sister out with two strong arms. Dee stood beside her, shaking a little from the exhaustion. Using that shovel was a workout and a half.

"I think you've put on weight Dee. Little harder to pull out. Maybe you should lay off the bacon cheeseburgers?" She said, teasingly poking her sister's stomach.

"The only way I'll lay off bacon cheeseburgers is if they're the ones trying to pull my eyeballs out." Dee retorted. "Pass the salt."

"Please." Sam said in a sing-song voice

"Bitch" Dee said

"Jerk," Sam replied, passing it over.

Dee sprinkled salt liberally over the corpse, Sam gushing petrol over the small bones and let Dee do the honours, dropping a match in and watching the flames spark.

They sat there for a couple more minutes, watching the fire dance before them. Sam held her feet precariously close and felt them become deliciously warm.

"One day, we should totally bring marshmallows and make smores." Dee said lazily, rubbing her hands over the blaze.

"I think that's a step too far in the psycho direction, if you ask me." Sam laughed

"Oh, what was my time in the end?" asked Dee

Sam checked her watch "Twenty to five, so 'bout two and a half hours?"

"Awh man, that's nowhere near!" Dee said, disappointed

"Yeah but remember, you're out of shape."

"Shut up. Come on, dawn's at five today, we should get going."


	14. Chapter 14

At midday, Sam sleepily turned over in the motel bed, trying to shove her pillow into a more comfortable position, when her phone rang. Blearily checking caller ID, it took her a minute to recognise the number. Her eyes snapped open. She jumped out of bed, picking up the phone with one hand and shaking Dee awake with the other.

"Hello, agent Plant speaking." She held a finger to her lips as Dee rolled over groaning the way she always did in the morning.

"Yes, thank you Sheriff, we'll be there right away." She closed the phone and looked at Dee, who was watching her, wide eyed and curious.

"Bill Hartman's dead."

Half an hour later they were in the Impala, Sam driving, Dee doing her make up in a hand mirror, trying her best to keep her eyeliner smooth against the forty year old Chevy's suspension. She was crowing with glee.

"I told you it wasn't Anne! I told you it was far too perfect to be true. _Gawd _Sammy, listen to your older sister once in a while." She said, applying chapstick and smacking her lips together triumphantly.

"If you don't shut up with_ I told you so_ the next person they're gonna find dead is you." Sam growled, hardly in the mood for Dee's egotistical reveries.

"Whoa, okay. Calm it giantess, you'll end up going all green and tearing your shirt off." Dee giggled at her own joke. "Haha Sammy hulking out, fucking hilarious," She shook her head.

Sam exhaled sharply, trying to keep her cool. There was no way she could put up with Dee being like this all day.

They pulled up outside the Hartman's bungalow, Dee shouting out directions from the passenger seat. It was a pretty little house, all white with terracotta tiles and a landscaped lawn and a bird bath.

"Isn't that the perfect picture of old age Sammy?" Dee said, getting out of the car. Sam ignored her. The whole place was ringed with police tape, a couple of squad cars parked closer to the house. Two uniforms were interviewing the next door neighbours, an elderly couple who looked identical to the Hartmans. The Sheriff and his Detective Inspector were in plain clothes, watching over the forensics teams who were disrobing, casting aside their white coveralls.

Sheriff Bakdus approached, nodding at the DI, who disappeared back inside the pretty house.

"It's the same MO." He said wearily. There was no greeting. This was a man who had worked too much overtime in the last few days, and was sick of finding men with their eyeballs ripped out.

"Tell me what happened." Sam said, nodding to Dee as she peeled off into the house. She'd be checking for EMF, sulphur, all the usual things.

The Sheriff, an Eastern-European with a heavy build and an impressive head of hair, rubbed his forehead and pinched the sides of his nose. "I'm sorry, I've got this splitting headache." He said. "This case is driving me absolutely crazy. The forensics can't pick up on anything. No forced entry, no fingerprints, nothing. Whoever's doing this must have some mad kind of superpowers, because I just can't see how they're doing it." He spread his hands in dismay "There's nothing to even connect the two, apart from the way the eyeballs were pulled out. No motive... nothing."

Sam tried to calm him down a little bit, speaking in a steady tone and steering the conversation back to safe, tangible things. "So Bill came home from his relatives?" She prompted gently.

"Yeah, he spent the day with his wife in hospital, then comes back here for the evening. That passes pretty uneventfully, looking at the place he just had a takeaway and watched a film... Then at nine am the next morning he calls his wife, he jokes about having to run from the living room to get it. She chats to him for about five minutes, then everything goes silent. She thinks the phone line's gone dead so she hangs up... Three minutes later the phone rings again, but when she picks it up, all she hears on the other end is screaming. We were alerted immediately" The big man gestured hopelessly towards the house.

"Do you mind if I take a look?" Sam asked

"No, go ahead. Forensic's finished, but just try not to touch much... We might need to come back here." He handed her a pair of latex gloves and pulled out his phone, already shouting at someone before Sam had gone three steps.

The Detective Inspector was coming out of the house just as she was going in.

"It's all yours." He said, laughing hollowly, his eyebrow jerking upwards. Sam mimicked his weary tone as she thanked him, pulling on the gloves.

She found Dee in the living room, carefully stepping round the blood puddles left on the beautiful cream carpet by Bill Hartman's throat being cut open. She had her EMF scanner out, holding it out near windows, but the little machine was staying resolutely silent.

"Are we alone?" She mouthed as Sam came in

"Yeah, the DI just left." She replied

"Thank god for that, he was breathing down my neck all the time, I looked like an absolute retard, just pretending to look for normal clues." Dee said, waving the scanner over the blood patch on the carpet. "There's no EMF anywhere in this room. I'd check the whole house but I really don't think we're going to find anything."

"What about sulphur?" Sam asked, having a look round the tidy room. There was a large french window overlooking the back garden, glass doors locked shut. The Hartmans had clearly thought a great deal about decorating this room, with a tall oak cupboard on the left of the doors, and a three-piece suite in matching ivory and pink. Sam closed the door that led to the rest of the house, stepping round a footrest to have a good look at the french windows.

"Nah, there's nothing on the sills or doorframe. I already checked it." Dee said

"It just doesn't add up. I mean, Mrs Hartman said she felt cold spots didn't she?" Sam said, pushing the door handle down, to find it locked.

"Key's on the windowsill." Dee pointed out. "Yeah I thought about that, but I called the property developer while you were talking to the Sheriff and he admitted that the new properties have been having boiler troubles. You can see why he'd want to keep that to himself though."

Sam hummed in agreement, unlocking the door and swinging it open. She crouched down to have a look at it from the outside. _Was that..._

"Dee," She called, trying to keep her voice steady. "Come and have a look at this."


	15. Chapter 15

On the outside of the door, just around the keyhole, were minuscule scratches that no-one except two Hunters would have recognised.

"It could be nothing..." Dee warned her. "Bill could have missed with the key when he tried to unlock the doors." But Sam could feel the note of excitement in her voice.

Around the stainless steel keyhole, were marks that Sam and Dee had seen, and had _made _a thousand times.

"Can't pick a lock without scraping a few keyholes." Sam said grinning. "You know what this means don't you?"

"Thaaat it's not our gig and we can move on now?" Dee hazarded a guess.

"_No. _The attacker's human, yes, but more than that. He's one of us." Sam said, surprised at how breathy her voice sounded.

"How did you jump to that conclusion?" Dee asked, a small furrow appearing between her brows.

"Don't think too hard, you'll hurt yourself." Sam stood up "Let's get back into the warm."

She pulled the latex gloves back off, stepping through the doorway.

"So how do you know our perp's a Hunter?" Dee asked again when they were back inside.

"If you wanted to commit a crime, and not get caught by _anyone. _Anyone as in, not even another Hunter, wouldn't you want to do it somewhere where people like us just walk straight into the trap of 'it's a supernatural thing?' The reason it looks so obvious, and so _easy _is because it _is_. Our guy wants us to think this is just a regular case, salt and burn the corpse and be on our way. Except he messed up. Either he doesn't know we're Hunters, or he doesn't realise that we already burned Anne's bones last night. That's why he killed Bill Hartman this morning. _He doesn't know the Winchester girls are in town." _

"Okay, I can understand that." Dee plonked down onto one of the pristine sofas. "It's a murder to fool Hunters. But surely the ordinary police would have figured it out? And what about if Hunters never even turned up?" She asked

"There's always a pretty strong likelihood that with a murder with that MO, that a Hunter will turn up. And you didn't hear the Sheriff. He doesn't have a clue. This guy knows his tricks and he's using them." Sam said, her voice getting faster as she worked it all out in her head.

"You're missing a trick though." Dee pointed out, sitting up. "What about the screaming they heard?"

Sam shrugged "Maybe he is actually a psycho. God knows I'd go mad if I did this job long enough."

Dee stood up again. "Well, we've got two options." She said briskly

"What are those?" Sam asked, curious.

"We can either hunt him down, or wait for him to come back and finish Muriel off." She said, a grim look settling over her face.

"You think he will?" Sam was skeptical.

"If he's anything like I think he is, he'll keep doing it until Hunters find him." Deanna flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Some people just love getting attention."

Sam did her best not to snort.

xxx

"How are you feeling Mrs Hartman?" The perky nurse leaned over the old woman's bed, fussing and folding and tucking sheets until everything was neat. Sam and Dee stood in the doorway, waiting for their cue. Flowers spilled over every available surface, not just get well soon wishes, but condolences for her dead husband as well. Sam looked at the cacophony of riotous flowers and tried not to think too much about Jesse, about the flowers she'd laid at _his _tombstone.

"I'm well thank you," she said to the nurse, then turned to the women standing in the doorway. "Hello Agents." Muriel looked terribly sad. Her eyes today completely devoid of even the faintest scrap of colour, but even so she managed to summon a polite smile from somewhere.

"Good evening Mrs Hartman. We've been led to understand you're thinking of checking out of the hospital today?" Sam stepped forward as the nurse left the room, squeezing past Dee.

"Yes." Mrs Hartman said, her voice slow. She sighed. "The Sheriff came in to tell me that my house has been cleaned. It's ready if I want to move back in. And in any case, I can't really afford another night in a hospital bed." She gestured to a small suitcase where a few possessions were neatly packed.

"That's really why we're here." Dee explained, coming to flank Sam's shoulder. "The Sheriff called us and said you might be nervous going back home. He suggested we ask if you'd like us to keep an eye on you tonight. It might make you feel more secure in your own home." She was telling the truth. Sheriff Bakdus had called, explaining he didn't have any women police officers available that night and would they do him a favour? Sam and Dee didn't hesitate before accepting.

Mrs Hartman's shoulders slumped with relief. "Would you do that?" She said "That would be _wonderful. _Oh thank you _so _much."

"It's not a problem Mrs Hartman. We're just doing our job." Sam marveled at how professional Dee could sound when she wanted to.

They waited outside the door as Muriel got dressed and got her things together, Dee ramming her hands deep into her pockets and scowling.

"It's one of those times I wish we were men. How are we supposed to wear guns without scaring her? It's not like they make gun holsters for women, and keeping them in our bags..." Dee held up her handbag, an over-the-shoulder patent leather piece with a fiddly clasp. "How in hell are we supposed to get them out in time to shoot an intruder?"

"We'll work something out." But Sam didn't have a clue.


	16. Chapter 16

They'd changed in the back of the Impala outside the hospital, both into jeans and heavy boots. Deanna had her favourite knife strapped to her thigh, safe inside its leather sheath. Sam had very carefully checked the safety on her gun and pushed it down the back of her jeans, tightening her belt on her hips until she felt it was secure, pulling her loose top down over it so the stock didn't show.

"She can't expect us to look like agents all the time, surely?" Sam had asked nervously as they rang the doorbell, but her worry was all for naught.

Muriel beamed as she opened the door. "Agents, please come in! Thank you ever so much..."

Dee cut her off. "It's really no problem ma'am, none at all."

"Oh please, call me Muriel." She led them through the the kitchen, an open, airy room with windows that looked out over the front lawn. Dee had a quick check to make sure the Impala was still there, Sam noted with a smile. "Can I make you some coffee, agents?"

"Muriel, if we're going to spend the evening together, you might as well call us Deanna and Sam." Sam said, taking a seat at the wooden table next to the window.

"Oh what lovely names. Is it short for Samantha?" Muriel busied herself with the coffee machine, while Dee excused herself to the bathroom. Sam knew she'd be checking the backdoor. Her skin was prickling with apprehension, her hands clammy with sweat. It was the waiting game she hated. When you knew someone was coming for you and all you can do is wait it out.

"Er yes, yes it is." Sam responded, a fraction too late. But Muriel didn't seem to notice.

"Milk, sugar?" She hummed. "Your parents must have really wanted a boy. Sam's quite the masculine name." She continued.

Sam took the jibe with a blank face. "I suppose they chose what suited me." She said in an even tone, sighing with relief as Dee sidled back into the room.

Darkness slowly fell over the small house and they decamped to the living room, switching on some mindless comedy that Mrs Hartman laughed at and Sam found depressing. Her eyes kept flicking back to the spot where Mr Hartman's body had been found. Was it just her or was the carpet there still a little darker than the rest? Turning back to Muriel, Sam considered that the widow was taking the death of her husband rather well. _If it had been Dee... _She thought, and the hair stood up on the back of her neck. Perhaps it hadn't been a happy marriage. She remembered the looks that had passed between the husband and wife when they had gone to see her in the hospital the day before. The silent permission to speak, the way he was anchored to her. Maybe the single life would be good for Mrs Hartman. At least she hadn't had to see her husband's body.

As another puerile joke led to yet another explosion of canned laughter, Sam excused herself, saying she had to get some air. Dee shot her a questioning look, so she mouthed a quick response

"Round the front," jerking her head towards the front door. Dee settled back into the sofa, fingers twitching half an inch from the knife on her leg.

Sam rocked backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet, looking left and right down the street. She was sweating from what felt like every pore, her hands shaking, her stomach twisting in knots. The fear and being on constant alert was shattering, despite the unhealthy doses of adrenaline flooding her system. She felt like prey, like she was being watched.

"Where are you?" She murmured to the empty street. The waiting was the worst.

Sam poked her head round the living room door.

"Anyone for a cup of herbal tea?" She asked. Anything to take up the time, something to do with her hands except clenching and unclenching.

Deanna made a face, just like she'd known her sister would do, but Muriel perked up.

"Oh yes please," She stood up "Here, I'll show you where things are."

Sam followed her through to the kitchen, letting her prattle on about her youth in South Carolina, nodded and saying "yeah" when the conversation demanded it.

The kettle was boiling and Sam was leaning against the table when the doorbell rang. In a shot Dee had joined them in the kitchen.

"I think it's best if you open it Muriel." She said, trying to sound as collected as possible.

They heard the door open and Muriel exclaim "Oh Walter! It's so good to see you!" Sam and Dee shot looks at each other. _Walter... Do we know a Walter? _They heard low voices, too quiet to make out the words, then the door shut. Muriel came back into the kitchen, holding a large bouquet of carnations and followed by an older man with grey hair and a scruffy plaid shirt.

"Ah, Walter, this is Sam and Deanna, they're the FBI agents I was telling you about. They're keeping me company for a little while. Girls, Walter is one of my neighbours. He's been ever so nice to me and Bill since we moved in." She said

Walter gave both the Winchesters long looks, as though he was trying to remember if he'd heard their names before. Sam felt too tense to smile, but she felt a corner of her lip twitch and decided it was enough.

"I'm so sorry to hear about your husband." He said. He had a rather gruff voice, that of someone who had been smoking cigarettes for far too long.

"These things come to pass." said Muriel. Light words, but her tone was heavy.

"So where are you girls from?" Walter asked, his attention turning to Sam and Dee.

"Lawrence, Kansas, actually." Dee said breezily.

"Oh I used to know someone from around there. A John Winchester?" Faster than blinking, Dee had her knife up against his throat.

"Mrs Hartman, now would be a _very _good time to go to your room and lock the door." Sam said, pulling her gun out from the back of her jeans. With a squeak, the older woman did as she was told, running out of the kitchen door.

"You are so fucking _stupid._" Dee breathed, pushing the older man into a chair. He looked up at the sisters with wide eyes and a face drained of all colour, until he realised.


	17. Chapter 17

"John Winchester had _sons," _He said. "Sam and..." He was breathing heavily, but he was swiftly interrupted by Dee growling in his face.

"Sam and_ Deanna." _She said, pushing the knife further into his throat. Sam just stood back. Dee was handling it just fine. Walter started swearing.

"_God-damn fuck!" _He said it so savagely that Dee took the knife away from his neck, surprised. He carried on talking, the words rushing out like a river. "I heard about the FBI agents sniffing around. Muriel told me and for _fuck's _sake I should've listened but you were..."

"We were _women_?" Dee snarled, knife back in position. "Was that it? You didn't think for even _one _second that we were Hunters because we have _vaginas_?" The emphasis on her words was scathing.

Walter winced at the word and Sam laughed hollowly. "You've killed two men, but you flinch when someone reminds you what we have between our legs? You really are a piece of shit." She said

Sam watched Dee as she bit her lip and dragged the serrated knife gently along Walter's scrawny neck. "Tell us why you did it Walter. Go on," She whispered gently

Walter swallowed, the expression on his face that of a man scared out of his wits, but he carried on all the same.

"Muriel..." A cunning glint glanced in his eye. "Bill controlled her... She was always doing what he wanted her to do. No freedom... I... I wanted to help."

Dee rolled her eyes and pushed the knife deeper into the man's throat. "If you know my father, you'll know he _hates _sob stories. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm any different. I'm still his daughter."

"Fine." Walter's whole demeanor changed. He sat up straight and spat at Dee, who swore and slapped him.

"Deanna!" Sam warned, still holding the gun up in case the old Hunter tried anything.

"Why did you do it?" Her older sister asked again, her green eyes seething with pent up rage.

"I _like _killing." Walter said, rolling the words on his tongue and spitting them out. "I _like _to feel a man's blood soaking down my arms. I _like _the look in his eyes as his life fades and his reaper comes for him. Oh you kill beasts and monsters for years girls. You save a thousand people's lives but _nothing _will feel as good as killing a real, live human. Demons come a close second but there's no _blood._ I _need _that release..." Dee slapped him again. She had gone white, except for two blood-red blotches of colour high up on her cheeks.

"Shut up you miserable prick." She said, brandishing the knife. "Let me tell you what's going to happen. Sam's going to tell Muriel that we're going to hand you in at the police station. Then, we're going to tie you up and put you in the boot of my car. Then, once we're far enough from this god-forsaken town, we're going to get you out, and we're going to shoot you. And then, Walter, we're going to salt and burn your corpse, because you are _never _coming back to this world."

Sam nodded, her throat closing up. "I have one question." She said. "The screams... Why?"

Walter looked up at her and grinned, a wild stretch of lips and teeth across his face that did nothing to change the wild look in his eyes. "Because they didn't." He whispered, that terrible smile never once cracking.

Sam had a sudden urge to scrub her skin clean.

xxx

_"_Sam, we can't shoot him." said Dee, once they'd gone about fifteen miles out of town

"What are you talking about, of course we can, Deanna" Sam could how hoarse her voice was, her knuckles clenched on the steering wheel.

"No, we _can't." _Dee insisted. "Think about it, he's a _human_ murderer. He's not supernatural. People can't just disappear. We can hand him in at the police station, say he did it. We won't have to shoot him at all."

Sam glanced round at her sister, who was sitting wide-eyed in the passenger seat. "You just don't want to shoot him, do you?" She said, a little more kindly.

Dee shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. "Don't get me wrong, I'd love to shoot the son of a bitch." She said "But I'm scared... What he said... _What if I enjoy it?" _Sam shot her sister a look as she held her voice tremble.

"No," She said resolutely. "You wouldn't. You're _good _Dee. You're a good person, and a good Hunter. You help people, you kill what's necessary. You'd never become like that."

Deanna nodded, green eyes a little watery, but she swiped at them with her sleeve, angry with herself.

"It's okay." Sam said, screeching the car in a U-turn. "We'll take him back."

They dropped him at the police front desk, hands cuffed behind his back.

"Now, Walter." Dee said in a mock-jovial tone. "You're going to be a good boy, and you're going to tell the nice Sheriff exactly what you told us. And if you don't..." She leant forward so the secretary on the desk couldn't hear, "We'll come back and stick a knife so far up your arse that you'll be shitting blood and pain for the next forty years." She flashed him a winning grin and turned round just as the Sheriff approached.

"I can't thank you enough agents." He said, smiling despite the dark circles under his eyes. "A full confession... Wonderful. I'll be forwarding my thanks to your Chief."

That made Sam smile. Bobby couldn't care less if they were praised by some small town Sheriff.

"You're very kind, sir." She said, nodding as he led Walter off to an uncomfortable stay in a cell.

Once they were back in the Impala, Dee kicked her out of the driver's seat and turned the key in the ignition.

"Ever though of being regular detectives?" She asked, turning the car stereo on and letting the opening chords of a classic rock song fill the Impala.

"Why, when we have such stable jobs already?" Sam made a sound that could have been a disbelieving laugh

"That's my Sammy," Dee's crow's feet wrinkled as she laughed, and they sped right back out of town.


	18. Chapter 18

Dee turned the music off as her sister fell asleep, legs extended, head knocked back against the seat, her mouth open. She looked adorable, her face relaxed. It was perhaps the first time since Jesse's death that the furrow between her eyebrows had completely gone. Usually it was there every waking moment, a permanent reminder that Dee had lost her sister the love of her life.

She sighed, smoothing curls of brown hair from where they'd fallen over her sister's face.

"I'm so sorry Sammy,"

A few miles more and the road became flat, stretching away into the dusky horizon. Dee was just deciding whether they should stop for the night soon when she heard the distinct trill of a mobile phone. She dug in a pocket and pulled hers out, squinting at it in the half light. It wasn't hers.

"Sam!' She hit her, jolting her out of sleep. "Where's that ringing coming from?"

Her sister pulled out her phone as well, but it wasn't ringing, the small screen staying resolutely blank.

"Hurry up, check the glovebox! We don't want to miss it!" Dee pulled over to the dusty side of the road as Sam scrabbled through all the 'other' phones, receipts and scrunched up napkins they kept in there.

"Here, you answer it!" Sam thrust the old-model blue phone into Dee's hands, which shook as she pressed the 'answer' button.

"Hello, hello?" Dee said, pressing the phone to her ear

"Is this Deanna Winchester?" The voice was gravelly, an older woman.

"Speaking." She said, swallowing

"I can help you find your father."


	19. Chapter 19 - Daughter Mine

Proverbs 31:29 - Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all

"Is this where we're supposed to be?" Dee squinted up at the stucco-ed motel, pink doors and windowsills breaking up the ridiculous amount of yellow paint. They'd driven for about two days, taking turns at the wheel while the other slept, now here they were in some anonymous town in Eastern Nebraska, gazing up at a meringue of a motel

"It looks a bit... It doesn't look like our kind of joint at all." Sam admitted, taking in the gaily painted wagon wheel and the pink picket fence.

"Yeah, because when has the supernatural ever come to a town that has a motel called '_Perfect Sleepy-time Motel?" _Dee was having trouble getting the words out.

"Let's not judge on appearances." Sam said, placating Dee as she always did.

"Fine. But if this is a scam..." Dee growled, slamming the Impala's trunk shut as she grabbed her bag.

"We're supposed to go to room 27" Sam checked the sheet of paper where Dee had scribbled down the instructions the woman on the other end of the phone had told her. "Not sure though, your handwriting is impossible to read."

"Shut up," Dee snatched the paper from Sam's hands. "Room 14, Sam, it's not that hard. And you're the smart one!"

She knew that would have earned her an eye roll, but she ignored it as she stalked towards the body of the motel.

Dee pushed the little buzzer on the side of the door, rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet as she waited. It was opened by a woman, approaching forty, with thick brown hair and heavy brows. Her downturned lips flexed into a smile as she saw Dee on the step.

"Deanna Winchester, it's been a lifetime." She said, and wrapped her arms around Dee. That was when Sam threw the holy water.

Ten minutes later, it having provoked no fizzing or screaming on the part of the older woman, they were all sitting inside her motel room as she dried herself off with a towel. The little room was nicer than most with a small table made kitsch by a floral patterned top by the window, a wardrobe with two doors and a carpet with no immediately visible stains.

"I'm glad John didn't raise you stupid, Samantha." She said dryly, sitting down on the edge of the pink and yellow bed. "But if I'd been a demon I'd've been able to kill Dee before you even managed to pull a knife on me."

"They're in our bags ma'am." Dee cut in, only to be met with a hard look.

"And what good are they there?"

"Sorry," Sam interrupted. "I think I'm missing something here. Who _are _you?"

The older woman looked shocked, turning from Sam to Dee, who just shook her head. The voice had been familiar on the phone, familiar enough that they _didn't _get the knives out, but she couldn't place it, or the woman's face.

"You don't remember me?" She asked, looking a little upset.

"I'm sorry..." Sam started, but she cut her off.

"No I guess I should have expected it... I haven't seen you since you were very small. When your mother died, your father brought you to me, Samantha. See, he wasn't very sure with babies... the feeding and the burping and the changing bits. So I looked after you for a bit, and after you, Deanna, as well, just while your father found his feet. My name's Ellen Harvelle."

"I do remember you!" Dee shot out of the plastic chair. "I do... You used to read me stories about Artemis, the Greek godess of hunting. I loved those stories!"

Ellen laughed. "Yeah, I remember those books. Never used to want to go to sleep, always asking for one more. You used to drive me up the wall Deanna. I have a daughter too now, a couple of years younger than you, Samantha. She loved those stories too."

They reminisced for a while, exchanging stories and catching up on everything Ellen had missed in the twenty or so years that had passed. At one point Ellen got up to get beers from the girls from the dusty mini-fridge in the corner and they popped them open, sighing with laughter in the quiet moment.

"Well I guess I should tell you why I asked you to come here." Ellen said at last, taking a long gulp of beer and setting the bottle down.

"Yeah, we've been wondering about that." Dee said, sitting forward on the chair, elbows resting on her knees.

Ellen pulled out a binder from a black bag on her bed, leafing through it to find the right page.

"I run a roadside bar in Northern Nebraska." She said, smoothing down the creases in an article she was pulling out. "It's sort of a stopping point for Hunters, where they can catch a break, a drink and sometimes a lead to another case." She grimaced. "Now, I thought when I had Jo that my hunting days were pretty much over. I didn't want to drag her all over the country and bring her up in motel rooms."

Sam and Dee shot each other a look.

"Don't get me wrong, you girls turned out fine, but it's not something I'd choose to inflict on any child. Oh the arguments I had with your father, girls you would not believe..." Ellen rolled her eyes heaven-wards and sighed. "In any case, after my husband, Bill, died it was just me and Jo so I kind of packed it in altogether. Until last week, when who of all people on this earth should walk into my bar but John Winchester himself."

Ellen tapped her fingers nervously on the table top. "I don't know how much you girls know, but your father told me he's hunting the thing that killed your mother. Did you know that?"

"Yes," said Dee, at the same time that Sam said no. Her younger sister looked at her with scandalized eyes.

"He told me while you were at Stanford, Sammy, I'm sorry. But I thought it was on a back-burner... The trail was cold, wasn't it?" She said, turning back to Ellen.

"It was cold," The older woman agreed. "Until a few weeks ago. John said he'd caught a demon and tortured it for information. The thing he's looking for is another demon... But a more powerful one than anything we've ever met before. It can only be killed by a very specific weapon."

Ellen picked up the article that was on the table in front of her. "And that's where I come in."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: To the guest reviewer - yes, we will see Castiel, but at the moment I'm working around season 1, and of course he's not with us till season 4 :( Thank you for your review, I'm glad you're enjoying it!**

This piece of newspaper was very old, yellowing and curling at the corners with time. The letters had faded to a light grey, but Dee got the feeling that Ellen had memorised it long ago.

"Have you girls ever heard of Samuel Colt?" She asked, eyes flicking between the Winchester sisters.

"Yeah... The gun maker right?" Dee had heard the name countless times from her father.

"Yes. There's always been this old rumour that Samuel Colt was a Hunter, and that sometime in the nineteenth century, he created a gun that could kill any supernatural being." Ellen must have seen the look in Dee's eye because she laughed. "It seems too good to be true, but it is." She gestured towards the article and continued "Now I love Bobby Singer as much as the next person, but if there's one thing you can say about that man it's that he does not do organisation well. Or personal hygiene either, but each to their own. The point is, I found this, stuffed between a book on pagan gods and an empty bottle of Jack. It confirms the truth of the rumour. The Colt... The gun that can kill _anything... _It exists."

"So where is it?" Dee asked. She was impatient. If she could bring the Colt to Dad, how pleased would he be? He could avenge their mother and _rest _for the first time in his life.

"I was coming to that young lady, hold your horses." Ellen said, raising an eyebrow at Dee. "I've been tracking the Colt. It's changed hands a million times, but I think this is where it is now. Only thing is, I think it's in the hands of a demon." She said

"What makes you say that?" Sam asked, leaning over the table to have a look at the article.

"There's been some freak deaths with no motives and no purpose. Things like accountants being strangled by their wives when there was only happy matrimonial bliss before hand." Ellen's voice was clipped and neat, running through the facts without embellishment or exaggeration. "It just sounds like a demon raising hell for kicks, but this is the last known location of the Colt and I don't want to pass it up."

"Any excuse to gank a demon is good for me." Dee stood up, brushing her palms together. "So where can we find this son of a bitch?" She asked

"That's just the thing. The demon must have been wearing the accountant's wife, because that's the last murder that happened here. But there haven't been any incidents since then... She's in police custody at the moment, from what I gathered from the papers." Ellen said, brandishing that day's paper at them. "Looks like it's time for some good old fashioned investigating, ladies."

Dee was mildly disappointed. They'd spent the last few hunts in suits, when all she wanted to do was get down and dirty and kill something.

"Can't you and Sammy go and speak to the wife, and I'll go and have a look round their house... Check for sulphur, see if I catch a glimpse of any black smoke... That kind of thing." She said.

Ellen and Sam looked at each other, and Dee could see the hesitation on their faces. "Anyway, you know what they always say... Three's a crowd. You'll be better off as just a pair." She was trying to sound as earnest and honest as possible, desperately willing them to let her go off to the house.

Ellen eventually sighed. "I hate to admit it, but your sister's right." She said to Sam, "Come on, get your gear on and let's go talk to our husband killer."

Once the women had left, Dee showered, glad to be out of the clothes she'd worn for two days straight. She stole some of Ellen's shampoo because it smelled like strawberries and appreciated being able to relax for what felt like the first time in weeks. She was tired of running from town to town, saving people and not getting any recognition for it.

_I wonder what people would do if I told them I kill nightmares for a living. _She grinned to herself under the spitting hot water. _They'd put me away. _

It would all be better once they found Dad. Once they found Dad, once they had the Colt... They'd kill the demon, their mother would be avenged and they could settle down in a house with a white picket fence. Sammy would go to college, she would become a mechanic... Hell, she might even go to college herself!

Dee was reveling in her imaginary future when the hot water ran out, cutting her dreams short. She took her time doing her hair, dressing casually instead of the itchy pant suit she wore when she was Agent Roberts. Or was it Plant? _Who cared._

When she finally left the motel room, it was over an hour since Sam and Ellen had headed off to the police station, but she reckoned she'd still have enough time to walk to the accountant's house _and _look around it.

xxx

The house had a 'For Sale' sign up in front of it. It was a pretty little thing, all dark brown with cream doors and a wooden porch, complete with rocking chair and pot plants. It looked the very picture of suburban happiness, exactly where a demon would love to strike.

Casually, trying to peer in the windows to see if there was anyone home, Deanna made her way up the painted wood steps and rung the doorbell. She concocted a quick story in her head about liking the house just in case there was someone in. It seemed there was. She could hear footsteps and see a shadow on the other side of the frosted glass. Smoothing her hair behind her ears she licked her lips as the door was opened by a girl with pretty eyes and bleached blonde hair, cropped in a pixie cut just below her ears.

"Can I help you?" She asked, smiling.

"Yeah, are you related to er... Mrs Fenwick?" Dee remembered the accountant's wife's name at the last minute.

"Yes, I'm her niece. My name's Meg. Meg Masters. Would you like to come in?"


	21. Chapter 21

**AN: To chaoswalking, thank you very much for your review, I really appreciate it :) **

"I don't know if you've heard, but my aunt and her husband aren't here at the moment." The blonde girl said, bringing back a cup of coffee for Dee. "Please, sit down."

Dee cautiously sat down on the green sofa in the Fenwick's living room. The girl - Meg - had a drawling voice, really lazy sounding, but Dee could just about hear a thrill of breathless excitement underneath all that and it put her on edge. Dee didn't take her eyes off her, making sure that the blonde girl never left her sights. She wiggled her foot, making sure her emergency penknife was in her sock. It wouldn't do much good in a fight, but it might help her if she had to make a run for it.

"Yeah, I...um... I saw the news." She said, pretending to sip the blisteringly hot coffee. "But I didn't realise this was the house. I just liked it when I was walking past." It sounded like a lie even to her own ears, but she hoped Meg wouldn't notice.

"It's terrible." Meg shook her head."It's just not like my Aunt to do something like that. Lyla loved Simon."

"Yeah it's strange." Dee agreed, standing up. "Do you mind if I have a look round the house? It's what I came for, after all."

"Of course you can, Deanna." Meg stood up as well, cocking her head on one side and smiling at Dee, her face lit up with nervous excitement. "Do you want me to show you around?"

"Er no, it's okay." Dee returned the smile nervously, not liking the glint she'd seen in those dark eyes.

She was halfway up the stairs before she realised Meg had called her by her name.

"_Shit_." She whispered, freezing. Could she make it out before Meg noticed? Probably not, the windows had all been safety ones. They didn't open more than a few inches so that thieves couldn't get in. She assumed Meg was in the kitchen, so the back door was out. What about the front? She could make it, maybe... Quietly, oh so quietly, she stepped back down the stairs, wincing whenever she heard the slightest creak.

The carpet at the bottom muffled the sound of her footsteps, heavy in those army boots. The front door was just around the corner of the hall, where the entrance to the living room was. She slid her head round the corner, cursing her long hair as it slid in front of her face. The front door had been left open, a blessing because it meant she wouldn't make a sound slipping out, Dee slumped against the wall, tying it up in a tight bun, wrapping the loose tendrils around the hair elastic and praying that it wouldn't come loose. One too many times she'd been blinded by hair in a fight, or choked on it as it flew into her mouth. Dad would always be pissed, and threaten to bring back the kitchen scissors unless she did better next time. She resolved to do well this time.

Dee didn't know where Meg was but crossed her fingers for luck and tiptoed round the corner. She reached the front door and brushed it, just brushed it with her fingers. So close... It slammed shut in her face. She jumped and whirled around as through she'd been stung. Meg was standing in the door to the living room, smirking at Dee.

"Well..." She said in her lazy drawl. "If it isn't little Miss Deanna Winchester." She stepped forward, until she was nose to nose with Dee and then blinked excruciatingly slow. When her lashes flicked back up, with an almost unnoticeable clicking sound, Dee was presented with exactly what she had feared. The whites of Meg's eyes were black. Demon black.

"Take a seat, Deanna." Meg whispered, then some irresistible force grasped Dee and flung her into the hardback chair that Lyla Fenwick's sewing box was tucked under. Her forearms were pulled into the arm rests, her legs to the front of the chair. Dee gasped for breath, the force of her landing knocking all the air out her lungs. She was winded, her solar plexus burning with the effort of getting in enough oxygen to breathe.

"Fuck" she wheezed, struggling to lift her head to look Meg in the eye. She'd have bruises all the way up her back tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. She refused to think about it.

"I was so disappointed when you walked in." Meg didn't seem to understand personal space. Her hands were running up Dee's legs, raising goosebumps. Why were demons always cold? Surely, coming from hell... Meg interrupted her train of thought. "I was really hoping for Sammy."

Dee jerked her head, wriggling against the bonds. "What do you want with Sammy you-" Meg silenced her, placing her finger on her lips.

"Hush Deanna. I don't like interruptions." Finally, she stepped back a bit. "Sammy's very important to us you see. Very important to my father."

"Your father?" Did demons have family?

"Yes Deanna. I believe you've met him." Meg giggled. "About ye high," taller than both Dee and Meg. "Yellow eyes, goes by the name of Azazel?"

When this produced blank looks from Dee, Meg sighed "Broke into your house and killed your mother twenty-odd years ago?"

Dee bucked against the force holding her, unable to make any sounds except a guttural roar.

"The penny drops!" Meg smirked, pulling out a bone handled knife with a small blade. She ran it across Dee's face so softly that it didn't cut, but Dee could feel the little dig and drag that the knife point made across her flesh. It took all of her self control not to shudder, because making the blade jump would make it cut and Dee quite liked her face as scar free as possible.

"See, Deanna, as I was saying. Sammy is _very _important to my father. I couldn't care less about his little battles and his personal projects but I am an _obedient_ daughter and I do his bidding." The knife again, this time stroked on the other cheek as Meg held her in mesmerizing eye contact. "You understand all about that, don't you Deanna? Good, little, _obedient _Deanna. Such a shame that for all you give your father, he still prefers your sister."

She laughed at Dee's shocked look. "Oh I know _everything, _Deanna. The Winchesters... well, let's just say you're pretty well known..._Downstairs._" The demon jerked her thumb to the ground. "And you're not exactly popular, either... Oh no..."

Quick as a flash, Meg drew the knife across Dee's lower arm. Blood jumped to the surface, pearls squeezing themselves out and running down onto the armrests. It was a narrow, shallow cut, not too painful, but Dee felt beads of sweat collect on her brow and upper lip all the same.

"There's _so _much I want to do to you Deanna, for all you and your family have done to my kind. But I need you." Meg said, eyes fixed hungrily on Dee's blood. "Or rather, my father needs Sammy. Oh it would have been so much easier if she had come, but you'll have to do I suppose."

"What do you want?" Dee growled, finally able to speak

"What does darling Sammy need most in the world?" Meg laughed "Her older sister, of course. She'll come for you, and I'll be waiting."


	22. Chapter 22

**AN: I'd like to thank Aroma Lady 123 for her continued support and The Archivist613 for reviewing, as well as all the new people who have started following this story. It's going to be harder to keep it up because I've just got back to uni and it's exam season, so uploads might slow down a bit, but I promise to do my best to keep going. Knowing people are reading it is a great motivator (I only wish I was this motivated to revise!)**

Dee didn't like the way Meg was watching her or the way she was toying with that razor-sharp blade. Dee recognised the look in her eye, because it had often appeared in her own. It was the look of them thinking how badly they could hurt their captive without killing them. It made her nervous. Meg left the room for a moment, coming back with rope, presumably from Mr Fenwick's shed at the end of the garden. She tied Dee to the chair, ankles to the chair legs, wrists to the armrests and abdomen pulled tight against the railed back. She didn't release the force on Dee until the last knot was tied and checked, and it felt like a sudden rush of air was being sucked out of her. It barely made a difference because her bonds were so tight, but at least now her back could crumple and slouch in the chair.

Meg twisted an armchair round and positioned herself in front of Dee, crossing her legs and tapping her fingernails on the cushioned surface. She hoped Sam would come soon, wouldn't just assume she'd gone to a bar and wouldn't be back till the morning. But if Sam came, then Meg would get her. Dee was torn between hoping she'd come and hoping she'd stay away. Oh, and hoping Meg didn't get bored and start cutting her. The slash on her forearm had stop bleeding so profusely, dried blood forming as a seal over the ripped skin.

"What does your father, Azazel, want with Sam, anyway?" She spat at the demon. If she was stuck here, she might as well get some answers.

"What my father wants is his own business. I was ordered to come here, capture Sam Winchester and return to him with her alive. I do as I am bid." Meg's eyes narrowed, daring Dee to ask another question.

Which she did, because there was nothing like a little bit of imminent death to make you curious.

"Why do you do what he tells you? You don't have to live under your father's shadow you know." Dee tried to look as nonchalant as it was possible to do so while tied up and at a demon's mercy.

Meg stood up, circling Dee's chair, running her fingers along her back and neck. "It's funny you should say that." She whispered, so close to Dee that she could feel her soft breath on the sensitive parts of her ear. "Funny, because you would do the same in my position, wouldn't you? You'd do anything for your father. Any orders, any commands and his little soldier would fall in line."

Dee felt her blood freeze cold. "That's different. We do _good _things." She said quietly.

"Is it? He raised you to kill us, Deanna. He raised you with hatred in your veins. I'm surprise you manage to function at all with it... It floods you. It overwhelms you. Can you even think for yourself?" Meg taunted her

"Yes, I can!" Dee growled, lurching against the rope

"Oh I don't think you can. I think you only manage when Daddy's telling you what to do. What's his little soldier going to do when he's gone?"

"Shut up! Shut up!" Dee tried to ignore the prickling of tears behind her eyelids.

xxx

Sam drove home, Ellen in the passenger seat.

"Well, it's definitely demons." The older woman said finally, pushing her hair away from her face and sighing.

"Yeah, she couldn't remember a thing." Sam agreed. The accountant's wife had been distraught, unable to believe that she'd killed her own husband.

"And the last thing she remembered was the black smoke, swimming around the vent in her bathroom. Wonder if Deanna's found anything.." Ellen said, leaning her face against the window.

"We'll see." Sam checked the clock on the dashboard. They'd been about three hours. Passing the required security checks and convincing the local police to let them interview the suspect had taken a lot of convincing and a call to a rather terse Bobby, because apparently these small town police couldn't get it into their heads that two women could work for the FBI. "She should be back by now."

The Impala was parked outside of room fourteen, but opening the door to their motel room, Sam found it empty. She checked the bathroom just in case, but Dee was nowhere to be found.

"She's not here," Sam told Ellen as she came from the car, carrying the paper bag filled with hot food they'd picked up on the way home. The older woman's face creased into a frown.

"It's not that late, and if she walked there... Maybe she's taking her time?" Ellen suggested

"Yeah, or she could have gone to a bar. We'll eat without her, it'll get cold otherwise." Sam said, shrugging off her blazer.

But by the time they'd eaten the greasy food, washed their hands clean and thrown the wrappings in the trash, she still hadn't arrived and the sky was beginning to close to dusk. Sam stalked the room, wringing her hands. Ellen sat by the window, looking for any sign of Dee's approach.

"She would have called, wouldn't she?" The older woman said after Sam had turned around for the thousandth time.

"Yeah...uh I don't know. It's Dee after all. If she's really gone to a bar then she might have gone home with someone by now..." Sam glanced at the clock, hoping it might confirm her worries, but it was only eight o'clock.

"Come on, let's swing by the house." Ellen said finally as Sam started running her hands through her hair in desperation. "If she's not there we'll check the local bars. It'll stop you worrying at least."

Sam and Ellen changed into gear they could fight in: leggings; loose t-shirts and jackets and worn-in army boots laced tight. Sam carried a knife strapped to her belt, Ellen a gun in a custom made holster on her hip. They both had equally grim faces as they set out. In a normal life, a friend or a sister coming home a little late might be nothing to cause concern. As Hunters, however, late usually took its other meaning: dead.


	23. Chapter 23

"Oh Deanna... Stay with me Deanna. I'd hate to lose you." That sing-song voice rang in Dee's ears as she lifted her head up and tried to see through hazy eyes. She'd stopped counting the cuts and slashes after the tenth one, but she could feel each now, throbbing and screaming at her. She wanted to clutch each cut and cry, but she couldn't look weak. Not now, not when it was so important. But the pain was blinding her, white spots dancing in front of her vision, and her hearing was muffled too, as though Meg were shouting at her from the other end of a long tunnel. Dee could feel herself trembling, her wrists running ragged, the thick rope digging into her skin. She was gasping, her lips dry despite the sweat that coursed down her face.

Meg ran a hand down her face, slipping her thumb into Dee's open mouth and pulling the moisture down over her lips like a lover might do. The demon lifted Dee's head up, clutching at her chin with bruising fingers, forcing her to look deep into her dark eyes.

"If your sister doesn't arrive soon... Oh I may have to kill a Winchester. Daddy would be _so_ proud." Meg said, dragging the knife across Dee's thigh. Blood welled as Dee choked back more screams, whimpering instead as Meg pushed her fingers into the cut. They came out slick with her blood, red and glistening in the lamplight.

"But _so _disappointed." Meg pouted. "I think I'm supposed to save you for him. Whatever I do to you, Daddy will give you ten times worse." Another cut, another strangled gasp from Dee. "But this is so much _fun._"

"My family..." Dee panted, knuckles clenched on the hard chair, trying to over come the pain "We will hunt you down and we will slaughter you and everyone of your kind."

But Meg just laughed. "Big words from the little Hunter. Especially when she's tied up. But you know what Deanna? I respect you. Oh I know a lot of people don't. I mean, first impressions speak volumes, and you look like a blonde bimbo who'll spread her legs for any dirty john."

Dee made a half-hearted attempt at a growl, but only a whine came out.

"But down in Hell, we recognise the importance of women. Women often make the best demons. Men might be strong but women are cruel, and cunning. Why, Lucifer's right hand man is a woman!" Meg's eyes glazed over, thinking about the happy times she'd spent in the fiery pit.

"What?" Dee managed to lean her head against the back of the chair. If she took deep breaths, the pain didn't seem so bad.

"Lillith." There was no way that word should have come out as a hiss, but it did.

"Lillith?" One word at a time was all Dee could manage.

"Lillith." This was starting to sound like a pantomime. "The first woman, Deanna. She refused to be an obedient wife to Adam and so God threw her down to Lucifer and created Eve instead. Lucifer didn't like _that._ You've heard the snake story?" Meg said

Dee nodded.

"Hell loves women, and Heaven hates them. Why do you think half of the old Testament is ways to control you? All women are still paying for Lillith's disobedience and Eve's fall. We have a _much _better gender equality program. I've pretty much broken the glass ceiling!" Meg laughed, cleaning the knife on her shirt and continuing, "But you're playing for the wrong team Winchester, and that's your mistake. Heaven won't treat you right. You're better off with us."

Dee's vision was swimming, she could feel herself withdrawing from the pain that licked her body like flames. "I'm not playing for...Heaven." She gasped out. "Playing for family." Then she blacked out.

xxx

Sam picked the lock on the Fenwick's front door, Ellen covering her with her gun out and the safety off. It opened with a click, swinging inwards. Sam stepped over the threshold, the warm tang of sulphur hitting her nostrils.

"There's a demon here." She whispered over her shoulder to Ellen, and in one synchronized motion they pulled from their jackets the plastic water bottles filled with holy water that every prepared Hunter carried on their person. Sam held her serrated knife between her teeth as she unscrewed the cap. She could hear a murmuring coming from the room on her left, along with panting breaths that sounded like an animal in pain.

Kicking open the door, Ellen shot twice, giving Sam enough cover to dart in and cover the girl that wasn't Dee in the holy water from her bottle. She dropped to her knees in pain as the water burned away her skin. Ellen came forward, joining in the drenching until the demon was clutching her face on the floor, writhing with the agony of the water coming into touch with her black soul.

"Draw a trap!" Ellen hissed at Sam, who did as she was told, using a black marker on the Fenwick's wooden floors. It was a rough devil's trap; the most basic version, but it would hold the demon if she attempted to escape the vessel that was causing her so much pain. She could not complete the circle without drawing around Dee's legs, hoping the fact that most of her was outside the circle would keep her safe from possession. She checked her sister's pulse as she added the last symbols, realizing with a sigh of relief that her sister was out cold, not dead.

The blonde girl shivered and raised her head, her eyes completely black. She grinned at Sam and Ellen, a horrible, mocking grin.

"Samantha Winchester. Am I glad to see you." She said, then her head was flung back and the vessel's mouth opened as a cloud of thick black smoke rushed out. It circled in the air for a moment, flickering with angry light as it realised it was trapped. Ellen surveyed the circle, then cried out:

"Sam! What have you-" But it was too late. The black smoke flooded Deanna's mouth, it snapping shut as her eyes flicked open, black as hell.


	24. Chapter 24

"I love it when Hunters make mistakes." It was Dee's voice, but different, drawling and snide. "It makes me feel all gooey inside." She snapped the ropes binding her easily, as though they had been made of spaghetti, drawing back her lips in an inhuman snarl.

Ellen pushed past Sam and shoved the chair into the centre of the devil's trap, before the Dee-demon could react. It lifted a hand and the hardback chair was flung against the far wall, sliding down with two of its legs broken. Dee's body looked down at the immobile figure of the blonde that the demon had been inside before.

"Exorcise her!" Sam pulled at Ellen's sleeve.

"Oh I wouldn't do that" The Dee-demon sneered, cocking her head in an unnatural way. "If you try to exorcise me, I will break every bone in your sister's body. I will snap my fingers and her organs will turn to liquid. She'll stay alive as long as I need her."

"Okay, okay." Sam breathed out, holding her hands up in the air. "What do you want?" She asked warily.

"It's not what I want, Sammy" The familiar nickname coming out of Dee's mouth made Sam's heart jump into her throat. "You're wanted. You're to lead an army. My father's army. You have been chosen Sam. We _need _you." Dee's voice had become joined by a deep rasping voice, layering her own like an ungodly chorus. "Come with us. If you join us by choice we are stronger," Her older sister laughed, bleeding chest rattling with the force of the demon inside her.

Sam shook her head. "I'll never join you." She said savagely. "I wouldn't fight with demons. I'll send you all back to Hell, and I'll make sure you rot there."

Dee's eyes opened wide. "All the same, you Winchesters. Full of _talk._" She snarled

Ellen stepped forward. "Enough with the bullshit. We want to know about the Colt, demon. We will darn well torture you until you give us the answers we want. Dee ain't scared of a little pain, and most the things I got up my sleeve will give you nightmares for as long as you live."

"Oh the Colt..." The demon eyes flashed, caught a little unawares. "It's destroyed."

"You're lying, you black-eyed bitch." Ellen reached for her hip flask, unscrewing the top.

"Why would I lie? Why would I keep the one thing that can kill my father intact? Would defeat the object, wouldn't ya think?" Dee's voice had lost its bass undertones, the nonchalance barely hiding the worried tone in her voice.

Sam managed to smirk. Even with a demon filling her body, Dee was a terrible liar. She stepped round to the back of the circle, pulling out a pair of handcuffs she stored in holy water. It was a little trick she'd learned from Dee herself, long ago. The demon in Dee's body tried to turn her head, to look at her, but something inside her was resisting. Deanna was taking back control of her own body.

"Wha-" She said, just as Sam clapped the handcuffs on, dragging her sister's hands behind her back. She howled, dropping to her knees as smoke started to rise from the demon's flesh. Ellen clasped Dee's cheeks, squeezing them until her mouth was open, then poured a healthy measure of holy water down the demon's throat, massaging it until she swallowed. The demon was shrieking, bunched on the floor next to the blonde girl's body, coughing and hacking as the tissue inside her burned.

She snarled, black eyes open wide as she writhed. "I won't... I won't tell you." She gasped. Sam watched her sister's body carefully as Dee's green eyes flashed for a moment as she fought for autonomy, then the black was back and the drawling voice was threading its way out of her older sister's mouth. Sam tried as best she could to keep an emotionless face. The demon couldn't be allowed to see how terrified she was, seeing her sister _evil_. She wanted to exorcise the demon and then hold and protect her sister. She wanted to make sure nothing could ever take Dee away from her again.

"You'll do what we say, you piece of shit." Ellen's face was fearsome, a grim mask of hatred. Fire blazed in her eyes as she tipped yet more of the holy water down the demon's throat.

Dee gargled swear words that made even Sam blush a little as the water went down her throat. "I don't have it. I don't-" She gasped. There, again, that flash of green. Dee could wrest back control whenever the demon was weakest.

"Where is it then?" Ellen growled, methodically pouring yet another shot of holy water into the demon's mouth, holding it shut until she had no choice but to swallow the burning liquid.

"I don't know!" The Dee-demon cried, tears running from the black eyes.

"Sam, give me your knife." Ellen commanded, her voice like ice.

"Ellen! That's Dee's body!" Sam said, clasping a hand to her weapon.

"She's got cuts all over her. A few more won't hurt." The older woman's tone brooked no argument and reluctantly, Sam handed over the serrated blade.

"Don't hurt her too much." She said, her voice quavering for a moment.

"Deanna's in safe hands." Ellen said, pouring a little of the holy water on both sides of the knife. "Here, hold this." She shoved the metal flask into Sam's hands. Then she turned to the demon.

"If you don't tell us where the Colt is, we're going to mix holy water with your blood and see how well you do then." The older woman said, grasping demon-Dee by the neck and hauling her to her knees.

"Please..." Blood was running down Dee's face, soaking through her clothes. The demon had worked her over before Sam and Ellen had even arrived, and now they were torturing her themselves. Sam felt a little sick. Dee reached out her hand, grasping for Sam's jacket, but Ellen slapped the hand away, then dragged the watered blade down Dee's upper arm, crossing over a cut made by the demon earlier.

Demon-Dee hissed in pain. Sam could see the blood pouring down her sister's arm, the sweat forming as a human reflex on her brow and she stifled an overwhelming urge to wipe it clean, to sweep away the tears and blood and make it all better. Smoke began to rise from the wound and Dee made a horrible, aching cry as it burned her.

"It's just the demon, Samantha, don't listen to it." Ellen warned, but it was Dee's voice, Dee's cries. Sam had never seen Dee cry.

"Dee, it's okay." Sam dropped to her haunches, stretching a hand to balance her choking sister. Deanna looked up, green eyes staring directly into Sam's.

"I know." Dee said the words as though two hands were wrapped around her neck, throttling her. "You're so...so close. She knows. She-" Dee broke off as the black covers slipped back over her eyes.

"I have her," The demon laughed, more a dry death rattle than anything, but it turned into a shriek as Ellen cut her once more, this time with the serrated edge of the blade. It didn't so much as slice her skin as rip it horrifically, the ragged skin at the edges of the tear soaked in fast flowing blood. More steam, more anguished cries that Sam tried to close her ears to.

"Gave it... to vamps." The demon finally gasped. "Two days ago. They'll be gone by now." She closed her eyes in pain, and when they opened again, it was Dee that stared out of them.

"Exorcise it." She rasped, hands splayed on the floor, holding Sam's gaze with desperate eyes.

As Ellen began the familiar chant from memory, Sam wound her fingers into Dee's, holding her neck and whispering to her.

"It's going to be okay Dee, don't worry, don't worry. You'll be fine."

Dee's body began to shake as the demon inside her protested, but there was barely any resistance and _finally _her sister threw back her head and howled out that black smoke as the demon was sent back to Hell.


	25. Chapter 25

Sam held Dee's wracking body as she came around. Gently, Ellen splashed water over Dee's cuts, washing the blood off her arms and legs and chest so she could determine where the wounds were, and how much medical attention they'd need.

"Most of these are okay." The older woman said finally. "I think this one," She pointed at the serrated cut she'd made last. "Will need a couple of stitches, but nothing Deanna hasn't handled before."

Sam didn't trust herself to speak. She was angry with Ellen for hurting Dee and angry at herself for letting her sister come out here alone. It was shoddy work. Their father would have kicked their asses six ways from Sunday if they'd ever fucked up this badly under his eye. But Dee was alive, and her body was all her own, and that was what mattered.

Deanna, poor soul, couldn't remember a single thing about her possession, and in an unspoken agreement Ellen and Sam decided to let her think that Ellen's cuts had been inflicted by the demon after she'd blacked out. That was the kindest thing to do, after all.

They spent the best part of the night fixing Dee up, cutting her bloodied clothes away with scissors and washing, disinfecting and wrapping up the wounds. She bit down on an old leather belt and watched Sam with anxious eyes as she placed two expert stitches in the ragged skin just below her sister's collar bone, pulling the flaps of the wound back together. Dee hissed when the antiseptic stung her, but no more tears fell from those green eyes.

Ellen wandered in and out of the room as Sam was stitching Dee up, calling Bobby no doubt, asking about a nest of vamps in the area. They wouldn't have long before the creatures moved again, a couple of kills would draw them to the authorities' attentions and they'd be gone like a shadow in the night before you could crush them all.

Sitting in a bra and pyjama shorts, Dee chugged an unhealthy measure of black label as Ellen polished a machete.

"We can't go after them tonight." Sam said, watching Ellen out of the corner of her eye.

"Sure we can, Samantha. We'll leave Deanna here and go after them. If we hesitate, we'll lose them." Ellen said. Sam sighed internally. The older woman had their and their father's best interests at heart; she wanted to find the weapon that would kill Azazel perhaps more than she and Dee wanted to... But she was grim, and she didn't stop to remember that Dee and Sam had _always _done things together and if a job was going to be done, it was going to be done by both of them.

"No, we should wait till tomorrow morning." Sam insisted.

"Your father hesitated once, and it cost my husband his life." Ellen said, mouth turning white as she pressed her lips together. Silence fell on the room, Sam couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"I am not my father." Dee spoke up from the bed. "And I'm not being left behind."

Ellen had no response

xxx

Dee spent a fitful night's sleep, tossing and turning. She was unable to get comfortable with the multiple throbbing cuts littered over her body. The blanket itched her and she alternated between flashing spells of sweating heat and freezing cold, making her shiver in the warm room. Several times her sister woke up, roused by Dee's mutters in the dark. Sam was kind, getting Dee water and tucking her back in. But by the time morning came about, Dee was a tired wreck. Her whole body ached and her head was thumping. She glanced at Ellen as she came into their room with a bag of fast food breakfast, which Dee ate before she realised she wasn't hungry. She put on a brave face as she tugged her clothes on, tiredly checking the magazine in her pistol.

"You alright to do this?" Ellen asked Dee as they got into the Impala, Dee behind the wheel and Sam shotgunning, leaving the older woman in the leather backseat.

"Yeah, no.. I'm fine." Dee said, clenching her fingers on the steering wheel to hide how they were shaking.

"You don't have to do this." Ellen said

"Yeah, I do." She insisted. "Dad is relying on us."

Ellen gave a terse nod and sat back in her seat, though Dee caught her a couple of times looking at her in the rear view mirror with a worried look on her face. Dee pressed the gas pedal to the floor. She was _fine. _Ellen needed to stop looking at her as though she was about to drop dead.

"Where are we headed?" Dee asked, once they'd taken the exit onto the Interstate.

"Ellen called Bobby last night after we put you to bed." Sam said, pulling a new map of the area, probably taken from the motel, from the glove-box. She spread it out on her lap and smoothed out the creases, finger running along the line that marked the interstate.

"There's been some weird kills about twelve miles out of town. Bobby said Rufus called him about it a couple of weeks ago, but he had a job out West and couldn't stop to take care of the nest. Bobby meant to send out someone to deal with it but never got round to it." She continued.

Ellen snorted. "Probably drank himself into a stupor and forgot about it." She said.

The corner of Dee's mouth twitched. "Maybe. Point is, do we know where they are? Twelve miles out of town isn't much to go on." The pounding headache she'd woken up with was receding.

Sam checked the map again. "Abandoned slaughterhouse on our left in three miles. Sounds about right."

"Oh yeah." Dee nodded. "A slaughterhouse. Just our thing."


	26. Chapter 26

They took the next exit, after about three and a half miles of tense silence. Dee could already feel the adrenaline flooding her body in anticipation of the fight that was to come. It masked the pain from the cuts that sat awkwardly underneath her clothing, but Dee knew any tremendous exertion could undo the healing they'd already undertaken on their own accord.

The road slowly dwindled to one lane, hedges pressing in on either side oppressively. Then it opened suddenly to a wasteland, red dirt with brave clumps of weeds shooting up around the remains of what must have been a tarmac car-park. The slaughterhouse had clearly closed sometime in the eighties, it was old, but not _that _old. It sat like a low toad, black and squat in the middle of the trees that shielded it from the view of the road. Several outbuildings on the right had rotted into nothing, weeds crawling like flies over the remaining planks.

"Why do we do this job, Sammy?" Dee said, shaking her head at the place.

"Shut up. Come on." Sam's voice was tight. She didn't like it much either, Dee could tell.

They picked out machetes from the trunk, staring at the place in front of them. There was a dark copse of trees just behind the fallen outbuildings, the shadows between them dark and long. Despite the place having been empty for nearly twenty years, it still stank of death and fear. No wonder the vampires had chosen this as a hideout.

They were slow to approach, none of them wanting to voice what they were all feeling. The double door had long ago fallen off its hinges and the space was cavernous, like the maw of a hungry animal. Small bones crunched underneath their feet as they stepped forward into the old slaughter house. Old metal pens lay twisted or broken on their sides, where the animals used to be kept. Here it smelled like stale feces, but always _always _the smell of fear. It made their nostrils shrink with its acridity. There was a narrow corridor on the right lined with white tiles, cracked and dirty with age. They walked down it, Dee trying not to think too hard about the animals that had been forced down here by tasers so she could eat cheap beef burgers.

Shadows hid them from any who might be watching as they slunk into another white-tiled chamber, old blood black from exposure dry on the walls and even the sound of flies humming was lost in the stillness of the air. There were a few passages leading off to the side, one presumably to an office section, with its frosted doors so that the people behind it could safely ignore the cries of dying and injured animals. Through another open doorway a counter top was visible, old rusting metal buckets left haphazardly across the floor.

"You two go through there," Dee whispered, gesturing with two fingers towards the room with the counter in. "I'll check the office."

Sam nodded and led Ellen through the double doorway as Dee nudged open the frosted office door with the point of her machete, peeking round it to check the corners like her dad had taught her before she went in. There was a stiff wooden desk and chair on a ratty rug in the centre of the room, dotted bookcases with only one, mildewed book with no covers remaining, files stacked around the desk in teetering piles of brown envelopes. But there was no sign that anything had been touched. Thick layers of dust covered everything, with no finger or footprints to show the presence of anyone else. Casually Dee smudged a crude doodle of a cock in the dust of the desk, then stepped back to admire her handiwork, sniggering a little. She wandered around the little room, hearing Ellen and Sam's footsteps grow quieter and fainter with distance until the only sound in the room was the blood rushing in her ears, pumping fast with the customary adrenaline that came with a hunt. She leafed through the papers on the desk, not knowing why she was hesitating in this dingy space that clearly had been left untouched by the supposed vampire crew. Then, a prickle on the back of her neck alerted her to the presence of someone behind her. She spun, lifting the machete, only to be greeted by the last person she expected to see.

"_Dad?" _Dee gaped at him. In a way, she should have known. He was still the only person Dee had met who could sneak up on her without her hearing a single footfall. He was as silent as a cat.

Her father held his hands up, sort of as though he was thinking of going for a hug, then he seemed to remember that he and Dee didn't hug, so it became an awkward shrug instead. He looked older and tireder than Dee recalled him looking, puffy bags under his eyes like he'd been sleeping in the car, or rough, unshaven face and far more grey streaking his hair than there should have been. His clothes were tatty and unwashed, holes appearing in the brown jacket he wore.

"Where have you been Dad?" Dee asked, not quite dropping the machete.

"Sorting things out." He was curt, as usual. Dee tried not to feel stung. She fingered the edge of her blade and stared at the ground and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach.

"I've been doing jobs by myself Dad, since you left." She said, trying to set her shoulders a little bit squarer, like a man would.

"Yet I see you've managed to drag Sammy back into this again. I thought we were going to let her be?" He was speaking in controlled whispers, but it didn't hide the anger in his voice.

"We were looking for you... I was worried." Dee dropped her eyes to the ground.

"You not think after this long, I could look after myself?" John was already moving away, leading Dee into the next room where a set of rusting filing cabinets were pushed up against the wall.

"I didn't...think... You didn't call!" Dee didn't bother scoping the room, it was too small. They kept on moving, into a corridor.

"You didn't think. That much was obvious." Her dad's back was to her, he didn't even look round as he chastised her.

Dee loathed feeling like a child, and she especially hated it when she didn't do something that was up to Dad's standards. She wanted to kick up a fuss, and point out how hard she'd worked, getting rid of demons and werewolves and god only knew what else. But there was no point in starting an argument, not while they were in a vamp's den, so she bit her lip and swallowed the ugly retort.

"Yes sir." She said instead and hated herself a little more for not standing up to him.

The corridor led into the room with the counter top that Ellen and Sam had gone to check out, but there was no sign of them. There was, however, a spiral staircase set into the floor. Dee peered over the railing, but the old lights had long since burnt out, and she couldn't see how far it went down.

"Sam?" She hissed into the darkness, listening intently for the clang of footsteps on iron. There was no answer.

"The vamps are hiding out down there." John said with certainty, jerking his head towards the stairs. "In the cold rooms at the back." He pushed past Dee and rattled his flashlight, holding it up to shoulder level and carefully making his way down the stairs.

Dee set her jaw at his retreating back and followed him, telling herself she was going to go down there _anyway. _


End file.
